Monday 31 October 2011
Smashing Pumpkins
Halloween must be a very confusing time for children in particular and especially so this year with a renewed onslaught by commercial interests to use the revenue from spooky related items as another attempt to jump start the economy. The 'X' Factor has not helped by having their All Hallows special on a saturday and a spin off on the sunday evening only for the very excited Tots to be informed that Halloween actually falls on a school night. How cruel is that? I expect any moment now a directive from the ruling party that those failing to purchase flashing deelyboppers, plasticky face masks and fang shaped jelly sweets may risk having their benefit docked. It is after all patriotic to take part in Halloween. My local Tesco Express has been stocking everthing scary for weeks. I use the term scary to describe the ultra high sugar and chemical preservative content of the cocktail of things found in a typical goody bag. The season presents an ideal opportunity for sweet manufacturers to offload their poorest selling lines by simply bagging them up as vampire snacks, witches vittels, frankensteins chewies or werewolf off-cuts. I will however purchase a large bag of miniature chocolate bars to keep by the front door in the event of callers . There has been disappointment on my part from a very poor take up of such treats in the last couple of years. It is important to make an effort as any perceived lack of enthusiasm will surely result in an egging attack on the front of the house on the forthcoming mischief night. Pumpkins, a poor mans savoury melon, have had a major resurgence. My daughter, Alice found a real pumpkin patch just outside York and indulged in a late season Pick Your Own. I have never come across that before. The celebrity cooks are thinking up wonderful treats involving members of the gourd and squash families. I thought the recipe for a fleshy pumpkin soup, infused with ginger and sherry was interesting. I followed the process faithfully. Hand scoop out and dispose of the seeds. Wash hands,optional, then claw out the insides setting aside in a heavy metal skillet. On low heat cook the flesh with butter. Add 1 pint of chicken stock, stir in previously prepared cooked onion and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Find at the bottom of the food cupboard a brittle stick of cinnamon devoid of any flavour. Empty all or any Schwarz herb or spice jars from the top of the food cupboard. Boil down the mixture to a firmish but not stiff texture. Remove from the heat. Use a hand blender to produce a smooth mix. The crowning glory of the recipe is in its serving inside the shell. Unfortunately, my son had, during my cooking endeavours, cut out two eyes, a cartilage free nose hole and a wide toothy grin. My eagerness to serve up the soup was dashed by the sight of the rich, orangey and creamy mixture extruding out of the orifices of the pumpkin and all over the kitchen to a combination of morbid amusement and horror of the hungry onlookers. The whole effect was very dramatic and in some way I may have implied that the whole performance had been intentional as part of the evenings entertainment. For Halloween tea we ended up eating '1000 year old zombie eggs in blood on an upturned rustic gravestone'. Apparently, they are available in 57 varieties.
Sunday 30 October 2011
Supplement to A big Hull Landfall
My Wife, Allison, from her own family history posts the following;
Here's to Louisa,from Germany, who met Adolph and his five children, from Sweden during transit in Hull. Here's to their falling in love, settling in Hull and having five more children. Here's to Gertrude Emily, one of those five (remembered with smiles and love). Here's to her children, Frederick and Raymond and George and Eileen. Here's to her grandchildren today; in different halves of the world but remaining close and bonded because of their roots
Here's to Louisa,from Germany, who met Adolph and his five children, from Sweden during transit in Hull. Here's to their falling in love, settling in Hull and having five more children. Here's to Gertrude Emily, one of those five (remembered with smiles and love). Here's to her children, Frederick and Raymond and George and Eileen. Here's to her grandchildren today; in different halves of the world but remaining close and bonded because of their roots
A Scream in the Forest
I conducted, quite by accident ,a slight variation on the philosophical thought experiment that should keep the experts busy for at least a few minutes. "If a cub scout falls in a forest and no-one is around to hear it, did I make a sound.". You betcha I did, it bloody well hurt stumbling over a pile of logs left on the forest floor by someone with no consideration or sense of natural order.The other, and most important but not so philosophical lesson that I learnt the hard way, that same day, was please take personal responsibility for checking the facts. Do not assume that what you thought you heard was what people were doing their utmost to ensure that you knew about.
My father had hesitantly turned off the main road into the forest track. The single, unmade road was little more than two ruts through a wood and with a very high and grass covered central reservation. His own reservations were wholly justified as the car bumped along accompanied by the sickening sound of branches, rocks and possibly small mammals being churned over by the sump and driveshaft. Even at less than walking speed the rocking and rolling of the vehicle was quite upsetting to my constitution and my father's confidence in the assembly line workers of Wolfsburg, Germany. After about half a mile of due south travelling we followed the forest ride as it turned through ninety degrees and opened out into the camping grounds of the Lincolnshire Scouting Association. Ahead was a broad open clearing in the trees and a low, and sizeable wooden hut.At the last cub scout meeting I had distinctly heard the Cub Master say that the day was to be dedicated to spring cleaning and re-creosoting the hut. Be there by 11am wearing old clothes, bring a packed lunch, plenty of drinks and arrange to be collected at 5pm. My father and I had been at the inauguration of the facility. Indeed I seem to remember that my father, through his contacts in the Bank, had sourced the building, a second hand structure from an industrial customer. A working party of cubs scouts and parent volunteers had helped to dismantle and load the panels onto a truck for transport and re-assembly in the forest clearing. The clearing itself had been a donation by a large forestry estate. We were a bit early, it was around 10.30am and no-one else had yet arrived. This was not surprising as many of my fellow scouts would be car sharing so even the expected dozen or so workers could arrive in as few as three cars.Father left me sat on the verandah of the hut. As his car left my sight to take on the tortuous track I had already started on my packed lunch. Four marmite sandwiches, two packets of crisps, a piece of homemade flapjack, a Milky Way and two cans of pop later, I kicked the empty tupperware container around the verandah in anticipation of not having time to do it when the working party really kicked off. My resources were completely exhausted. I would have to cadge for the rest of the day, nothing different there then. The eleventh hour passed. My Casio digital watch was difficult to read in even good light but I could make out the LED display. Not a sound could be heard in the clearing. The busy main road was densely screened to the north and the newly opened M180 motorway was deep set in a cutting about a mile to the south. No crunch or crash of the underside of a vehicle on the track. I was certainly alone. In that first desolate hour I just sat on the balustrade of the verandah and kicked my legs on the spindles to a series of interesting rhythms with a hummed melody. No sign of any company. I backtracked to the last meeting and it's key words...hut....spring clean....packed lunch....11am ....5pm collection. I wondered if the whole thing had been cancelled and I had not been in the information loop. Nothing different there then. By the second hour I had run around the hut about 30 times hoping to catch myself and engage in conversation. My dizziness and induced hunger knock convinced me that I was just around the next corner but we never met up. I had to rest for much of that hour and retreated to the verandah. The third hour was my aggressive period. How dare no-one else turn up. I was sacrificing my saturday . Swap Shop, Football Focus, Grandstand, Play-Away, Final Score but not Doctor Who at 6pm. I resorted to scouring the clearing for stones or clumps of soil and then lob these over the roof of the hut in hand grenade or mortar firing style. I believe that the window pane to the lower left hand side of the hut was already smashed when I had got there. I had to venture farther and farther away from the hut to satisfy my destructive lust for projectiles. By the fourth hour of my internment I was amongst the treeline. I wandered about staring up at the branches and the pale sky above. My inattention to where I was stepping led to the philosophical sound experiment . My scream of pain startled me as I looked round for a small girl obviously in some distress. I collected branches and more substantial boughs, including logs from that concealed pile and constructed a lean-to bivouac against the trunk of a very large Pine tree. Those ants are crafty aren't they I exclaimed. My endeavours and expectant occupation of my den was thwarted by red ants who had obviously watched me build the thing and then promptly moved in and squatted. I abandoned the bivouac. The fifth hour was my desperate period. I was now very hungry, a bit cold and very thirsty. I had seen some survival programmes on TV but could not remember any of those plants which stored potable moisture or were both nourishing and anti-septic at the same time. I pulled up and chewed on thin, flat blades of grass and then found that they could make a raucous screeching sound if compressed between thumbs and blown through. The waling was both melancholy and frightening. I stopped doing it quite quickly. The hope of salvation through the longest and sixth hour caused some elation and hallucination. I could hear a car somewhere distant. There were sounds of a group of cubs shouting my name. I swore I could hear the swish of sticks from a search party. The noise of slavvering bloodhounds was certainly audible. I rolled up my trousers to just below my knees, took off my socks and tied one around my head, fashioned a flag from a stout branch and the other sock and marched towards the direction of the imagined sounds. I panicked briefly having lost my bearings in the thick forest growth but I was after all a Cub Scout and followed a path towards the weak disc of the late afternoon sun which eventually led back to the clearing. I still had to wait for another 20 minutes before my father arrived. My relief and reassurance in coming across another living being was very evident. On the way back through town my father took the longer way through the Market Place. I thought this strange. The reason soon became clear. The town troop Scout Hut glistened with a fresh coat of creosote and on the verge was a skip full to the brim with old equipment, tent poles and rubbish. Outside sat a group of a dozen or so wearing very grubby and grimy old clothes finishing off the contents of their lunch boxes. My father grinned a bit as I sunk down in the passenger seat to well below the level of the nearside window pretending to remove bits of pinecone from my trouser turn-ups.
My father had hesitantly turned off the main road into the forest track. The single, unmade road was little more than two ruts through a wood and with a very high and grass covered central reservation. His own reservations were wholly justified as the car bumped along accompanied by the sickening sound of branches, rocks and possibly small mammals being churned over by the sump and driveshaft. Even at less than walking speed the rocking and rolling of the vehicle was quite upsetting to my constitution and my father's confidence in the assembly line workers of Wolfsburg, Germany. After about half a mile of due south travelling we followed the forest ride as it turned through ninety degrees and opened out into the camping grounds of the Lincolnshire Scouting Association. Ahead was a broad open clearing in the trees and a low, and sizeable wooden hut.At the last cub scout meeting I had distinctly heard the Cub Master say that the day was to be dedicated to spring cleaning and re-creosoting the hut. Be there by 11am wearing old clothes, bring a packed lunch, plenty of drinks and arrange to be collected at 5pm. My father and I had been at the inauguration of the facility. Indeed I seem to remember that my father, through his contacts in the Bank, had sourced the building, a second hand structure from an industrial customer. A working party of cubs scouts and parent volunteers had helped to dismantle and load the panels onto a truck for transport and re-assembly in the forest clearing. The clearing itself had been a donation by a large forestry estate. We were a bit early, it was around 10.30am and no-one else had yet arrived. This was not surprising as many of my fellow scouts would be car sharing so even the expected dozen or so workers could arrive in as few as three cars.Father left me sat on the verandah of the hut. As his car left my sight to take on the tortuous track I had already started on my packed lunch. Four marmite sandwiches, two packets of crisps, a piece of homemade flapjack, a Milky Way and two cans of pop later, I kicked the empty tupperware container around the verandah in anticipation of not having time to do it when the working party really kicked off. My resources were completely exhausted. I would have to cadge for the rest of the day, nothing different there then. The eleventh hour passed. My Casio digital watch was difficult to read in even good light but I could make out the LED display. Not a sound could be heard in the clearing. The busy main road was densely screened to the north and the newly opened M180 motorway was deep set in a cutting about a mile to the south. No crunch or crash of the underside of a vehicle on the track. I was certainly alone. In that first desolate hour I just sat on the balustrade of the verandah and kicked my legs on the spindles to a series of interesting rhythms with a hummed melody. No sign of any company. I backtracked to the last meeting and it's key words...hut....spring clean....packed lunch....11am ....5pm collection. I wondered if the whole thing had been cancelled and I had not been in the information loop. Nothing different there then. By the second hour I had run around the hut about 30 times hoping to catch myself and engage in conversation. My dizziness and induced hunger knock convinced me that I was just around the next corner but we never met up. I had to rest for much of that hour and retreated to the verandah. The third hour was my aggressive period. How dare no-one else turn up. I was sacrificing my saturday . Swap Shop, Football Focus, Grandstand, Play-Away, Final Score but not Doctor Who at 6pm. I resorted to scouring the clearing for stones or clumps of soil and then lob these over the roof of the hut in hand grenade or mortar firing style. I believe that the window pane to the lower left hand side of the hut was already smashed when I had got there. I had to venture farther and farther away from the hut to satisfy my destructive lust for projectiles. By the fourth hour of my internment I was amongst the treeline. I wandered about staring up at the branches and the pale sky above. My inattention to where I was stepping led to the philosophical sound experiment . My scream of pain startled me as I looked round for a small girl obviously in some distress. I collected branches and more substantial boughs, including logs from that concealed pile and constructed a lean-to bivouac against the trunk of a very large Pine tree. Those ants are crafty aren't they I exclaimed. My endeavours and expectant occupation of my den was thwarted by red ants who had obviously watched me build the thing and then promptly moved in and squatted. I abandoned the bivouac. The fifth hour was my desperate period. I was now very hungry, a bit cold and very thirsty. I had seen some survival programmes on TV but could not remember any of those plants which stored potable moisture or were both nourishing and anti-septic at the same time. I pulled up and chewed on thin, flat blades of grass and then found that they could make a raucous screeching sound if compressed between thumbs and blown through. The waling was both melancholy and frightening. I stopped doing it quite quickly. The hope of salvation through the longest and sixth hour caused some elation and hallucination. I could hear a car somewhere distant. There were sounds of a group of cubs shouting my name. I swore I could hear the swish of sticks from a search party. The noise of slavvering bloodhounds was certainly audible. I rolled up my trousers to just below my knees, took off my socks and tied one around my head, fashioned a flag from a stout branch and the other sock and marched towards the direction of the imagined sounds. I panicked briefly having lost my bearings in the thick forest growth but I was after all a Cub Scout and followed a path towards the weak disc of the late afternoon sun which eventually led back to the clearing. I still had to wait for another 20 minutes before my father arrived. My relief and reassurance in coming across another living being was very evident. On the way back through town my father took the longer way through the Market Place. I thought this strange. The reason soon became clear. The town troop Scout Hut glistened with a fresh coat of creosote and on the verge was a skip full to the brim with old equipment, tent poles and rubbish. Outside sat a group of a dozen or so wearing very grubby and grimy old clothes finishing off the contents of their lunch boxes. My father grinned a bit as I sunk down in the passenger seat to well below the level of the nearside window pretending to remove bits of pinecone from my trouser turn-ups.
Saturday 29 October 2011
A Big Hull Landfall
The end of the line, a dead end, you only go to Hull if you have to.......heard it before, heard it today and those who have never visited the great City will continue to say it in the coming years. Yet, for the estimated 2,200,000 immigrants who passed through Hull on the way to settlement in the United States, Canada and South Africa in the mid to late 19th Century it marked the beginning of the next stage of their arduous journey to find safety from persecution and to earn a living. Arrival in the port will have brought a graphic realisation that their flight was progressing, particularly after a hellish three to four days of passage across the volatile North Sea from the Baltic Ports. At last, some firm soil under their feet and the prospect of a rapid train transfer across the country to the mass transit hub of Liverpool. There had been a negligible trickle of migrants, around 1000 a year in the early part of the century. Risking sickness or a perishing at sea these early arrivals mainly settled in the emerging Industrial centres of England and quickly established communities in York, Leeds and Manchester. By the 1840's the transport of emigrants from Norway, Sweden and North Germany was big business for steamship companies who switched fully to passenger cargo or maintained a mix of goods and people. The Wilson Line, a Hull based company, held a virtual monopoly of the routes. The generation of income from frequent crossings was tremendous but at the cost of quality and humane standards. This drew the attention of the Hull Board of Health, who had a running battle with the Wilson Line over poor and unacceptable standards of their passenger vessels. The Steamship Argo was likened to a little better than a cattle ship. Human excrement running down and sticking to the side of the superstructure was cited. The inhumane conditions threatened not only the health and welfare of the poor transportees but also the wider City population.When ships arrivals did not coincide with the running times for ongoing trains the squalid conditions on board persisted with, largely, only the male emigrants allowed to venture out into the city. Outbreaks of Cholera in most of the European Ports demanded immediate action to prevent an epidemic amongst the local population. The Hull Sanitary Authority was formed in 1851, an early Quango, with responsibility for the wider urban area and the Port. Main embarcation points in the central and eastern docks included the Steam Packet Wharf in the Humber Dock Basin or the Victoria Dock. The Minerva Hotel on the Dock Basin Quay served as offices for emigrant agents and became established as the hub of the operation. The threat to Health was serious and after 1866 the arrivees at Victoria Dock were not allowed to cross the town on foot and were kettled onto trains on the North Eastern Railway. Those arriving at the Dock Basin were invariably held on board. A safer option, particularly as confused and disorientated european migrants were at significant risk of exploitation by the inevitable presence of chancers and racketeers in the narrow dockside streets. A major improvement and recognition of the vast human traffic through Hull was the construction, in 1871, of an Immigrant Waiting Room and allocation of a transit platform just on the southern edge of Paragon Station with a frontage to Anlaby Road. This building still survives as a Bar and Social Club for Hull City football supporters. The building, a long, narrow, low slung brick and slate structure had actual but limited facilities for the comfort and convenience of immigrants. The prospect of a first wash, secure toilet and permanent landside shelter was well overdue. From the building ticket agents could ply their business in a controlled environment against criminal activity. Once ashore, most passengers were despatched on the next leg of their journey within 24 hours. Those delayed for whatever reason and requiring lodgings had a limited choice evidently a Directive from the authorities to discourage even temporary settlement. Twenty emigrant lodging houses were officially licenced in 1871. These were little more than dormitories accommodating between 20 and 80 people at a time. The Waiting Room had to be extended within ten years. Arrivals continued to increase up to 1885 and the Hull and Barnsley Railway Company jumped in to capitalise on the trade with a second emigrant platform at their new Alexandra Dock development. The purpose built complex could take the largest of steamships and the prompt transfer of passengers to trains of 17 carriages, the last four being exclusively for baggage. The long trains had priority on the line with a monday morning departure for the 4 hour journey to Liverpool, the gateway to the United States and Canada. The exodus from Europe was persistent and in 1904 the Wilson Line leased a separate landing station at Island Wharf at the Basin mouth being the fourth such facility across the waterfront. The income from this trade, for the Wilson Line, had made it the largest privately owned shipping line in the world. There was another ten years of peak profits from the transmigration business before the outbreak of the First World War ended the trade overnight.
Hull was the natural stepping stone for those escaping to a better percieved life in the west. Amongst the 2.2 million passing through was a documented, but estimated, 500,000 european Jews and up to 70,000 of Russian and Polish origin. Large numbers of Swedish, Norwegian and Danish migrants, mainly of hardy farming stock , were customers of The Wilson Line for resettlement in North America.
The Island Wharf has a permanent commemorative statue to the plight of the immigrants with a family sat amongst suitcases containing their worldly belongings , looking a bit apprehensive about what lies ahead.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Northern_European_Family_-_geograph.org.uk_-_540649.jpg
Hull was the natural stepping stone for those escaping to a better percieved life in the west. Amongst the 2.2 million passing through was a documented, but estimated, 500,000 european Jews and up to 70,000 of Russian and Polish origin. Large numbers of Swedish, Norwegian and Danish migrants, mainly of hardy farming stock , were customers of The Wilson Line for resettlement in North America.
The Island Wharf has a permanent commemorative statue to the plight of the immigrants with a family sat amongst suitcases containing their worldly belongings , looking a bit apprehensive about what lies ahead.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Northern_European_Family_-_geograph.org.uk_-_540649.jpg
Friday 28 October 2011
Alien abduction
I may have been kidnapped by a French family and returned when no-one offered to pay the ransom.
I have been reviewing the evidence for this thought that has been quite persistent in my mind following the chain of events that happened in 1978.
I had put my name down, with parental encouragement, for a school exchange trip.
The late 1970's was the heyday of the town twinning process and a spin-off was always a swop of cultures, industries and school-children.
The trafficking I enlisted in was for 2 weeks, the longest I would be away from home to date, in the Paris suburb of Clamart.
I was packed off with my suitcase and Adidas vinyl sports bag, now regarded very much as retro-chic, on the school coach for the long drive down to the ferry at Dover. I grasped my cardboard visitors passport ,as I had never been abroad before whereas many of my fellow travellers had already been on family holidays to Spain and beyond.
I felt a bit whoozy on the choppy channel crossing but thankfully did not show myself, or my packed lunch, up. Landing in France I got an opportunity to speak my schoolboy phrases but mortal fear meant I restricted myself to simple Bonjours, Merci Beaucoups and Au Revoirs.
The coach took us on a brief tour through Paris whereas I suspect the driver, from my home town, got a bit lost on the ring road. I got my first glimpse of the landmarks of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.
The twinning process was very much a numbers game and I had not actually been told with whom or where I would be billeted. The Clamart school was a bit like an inner city comprehensive with a catchment including tenements, high risers and the leafy, affluent suburbs.
I was pointed out to my host family and whisked away in a battered old Peugeot accompanied by a chatter of language and the frequent laying on of hands in excitement.
Ann, my exchangee, was a strange girl, quite tall and a bit stocky for her age. Her not being very talkative or friendly was a bit foreboding. Her parents were in their sixties, mother small, grey haired and wizened, father obviously disgruntled at having been forced to take an English boy into his home.
They lived in a block of flats amongst a whole mass of similar buildings but well kept and with fragrant stairwells. It was late on the first night and I was given a piece of meat and some rice. The meat was like no other I had tasted, nice but possibly horse.
I did not sleep much being used to a quiet housing estate but now bombarded with city sounds, traffic movements, car horns, sirens ,loud conversations and the very stereotypical, but very real sound of Jazz music permeating from some upper floor.
Breakfast was a bowl of warm milk and a chocolate filled croissant, a staple of successive mornings.
Returning to the dropping off point at the school, I was pleased to see familiar faces at the first morning meeting and we exchanged stories of accommodation and food.
The first week of the student swop went well. Mr and Mrs softened to me a bit more. We had long evening meals together trying to converse and find some mutually interesting topics, as much as a quiet 15 year old can with ancient french people. Do not, I warn you, try to tell an English joke through crude translation and then attempt to explain it's comic points to non-English speakers. "When is a door not a door? When it's ajar".
The second week coincided with a school vacation.
This was, I felt either clever planning to immerse us in true french family life, or a complete mistake by the organisers because I found myself packed into the Peugeot between Ann and her beefy thigh and two small children, the nephew and niece.
I had not had an opportunity to discuss contact details with our own trip co-ordinator for the next seven days.
I may have been the victim of a kidnap.
Apparently we were going on holiday. I have tried many times to work out the route we travelled.
The highways were long, straight and tree lined through stone built towns and villages. The only discernible sign I saw and vaguely recognised was for Le Mans. It was a very draining trip, Ann fidgeted and crushed me into the corner of the back seat with that beefy thigh. The two small brats were whining, irritable and irritating as though they were going down with some horrible sickness.
At last on the horizon I saw the reflection of the sea.
We had arrived in Brittany about, what, 400 miles or 8 hours drive from Paris. Spilling out of the car and stretching my cramped form I saw my next accommodation. A beautiful cottage farmhouse, low whitewashed walls and undulating pantile roof in tended gardens. This was the family rural retreat away from the grime and noise of the capital city.
Within a couple of hours the house was in quarantine.
Ann and the two brats had swollen up nastily with Scarlettine, scarlet fever.
Mr and Mrs were kept busy tending the awkward and needy sick. I was left to entertain myself. In the barn, adjacent to the house was an old but roadworthy bike, a real boneshaker. In the next few days I clocked up tens of miles in the rolling Breton countryside and soon perfected my favourite french phrase, 'Une biere blond, s'il vous plait".
In retrospect rather foolishly I carried no I.D, personal or contact details. I was briefly without name, country or permanent residence. A true alien. Imagine that scenario in current times.
Later on in the week the family emerged,slightly less swollen, blinking into the light for some activities. I was taken to a town called Guerande, saw acres and acres of salt marshes and learnt the term 'Paludier', farmer of salt. This knowledge earned me a subsequent merit in my french aural exam some months later.
Best of all, I spent many hours cycling along the Breton coast with its wide clean beaches below, sand dunes and small cafes, all serving my new favourite beverage.
I must have been a bit tipsy for the duration.
Indicated in sign language as the last day of the holiday I helped the re-assembled family to paddle about at the shoreline to excavate coquillages for a wonderful white wine enfused seafood stew.
Squashed again against Ann's chunky thigh I took pleasure in remembering my week in Brittany during the long drive back to the suburbs of Paris.
It had been a great excursion and the first of a few subsequent trips to France, a country that I felt quite at home in. I didn't bother to ask my parents if they had been asked to pay a ransom for my return.
I have been reviewing the evidence for this thought that has been quite persistent in my mind following the chain of events that happened in 1978.
I had put my name down, with parental encouragement, for a school exchange trip.
The late 1970's was the heyday of the town twinning process and a spin-off was always a swop of cultures, industries and school-children.
The trafficking I enlisted in was for 2 weeks, the longest I would be away from home to date, in the Paris suburb of Clamart.
I was packed off with my suitcase and Adidas vinyl sports bag, now regarded very much as retro-chic, on the school coach for the long drive down to the ferry at Dover. I grasped my cardboard visitors passport ,as I had never been abroad before whereas many of my fellow travellers had already been on family holidays to Spain and beyond.
I felt a bit whoozy on the choppy channel crossing but thankfully did not show myself, or my packed lunch, up. Landing in France I got an opportunity to speak my schoolboy phrases but mortal fear meant I restricted myself to simple Bonjours, Merci Beaucoups and Au Revoirs.
The coach took us on a brief tour through Paris whereas I suspect the driver, from my home town, got a bit lost on the ring road. I got my first glimpse of the landmarks of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.
The twinning process was very much a numbers game and I had not actually been told with whom or where I would be billeted. The Clamart school was a bit like an inner city comprehensive with a catchment including tenements, high risers and the leafy, affluent suburbs.
I was pointed out to my host family and whisked away in a battered old Peugeot accompanied by a chatter of language and the frequent laying on of hands in excitement.
Ann, my exchangee, was a strange girl, quite tall and a bit stocky for her age. Her not being very talkative or friendly was a bit foreboding. Her parents were in their sixties, mother small, grey haired and wizened, father obviously disgruntled at having been forced to take an English boy into his home.
They lived in a block of flats amongst a whole mass of similar buildings but well kept and with fragrant stairwells. It was late on the first night and I was given a piece of meat and some rice. The meat was like no other I had tasted, nice but possibly horse.
I did not sleep much being used to a quiet housing estate but now bombarded with city sounds, traffic movements, car horns, sirens ,loud conversations and the very stereotypical, but very real sound of Jazz music permeating from some upper floor.
Breakfast was a bowl of warm milk and a chocolate filled croissant, a staple of successive mornings.
Returning to the dropping off point at the school, I was pleased to see familiar faces at the first morning meeting and we exchanged stories of accommodation and food.
The first week of the student swop went well. Mr and Mrs softened to me a bit more. We had long evening meals together trying to converse and find some mutually interesting topics, as much as a quiet 15 year old can with ancient french people. Do not, I warn you, try to tell an English joke through crude translation and then attempt to explain it's comic points to non-English speakers. "When is a door not a door? When it's ajar".
The second week coincided with a school vacation.
This was, I felt either clever planning to immerse us in true french family life, or a complete mistake by the organisers because I found myself packed into the Peugeot between Ann and her beefy thigh and two small children, the nephew and niece.
I had not had an opportunity to discuss contact details with our own trip co-ordinator for the next seven days.
I may have been the victim of a kidnap.
Apparently we were going on holiday. I have tried many times to work out the route we travelled.
The highways were long, straight and tree lined through stone built towns and villages. The only discernible sign I saw and vaguely recognised was for Le Mans. It was a very draining trip, Ann fidgeted and crushed me into the corner of the back seat with that beefy thigh. The two small brats were whining, irritable and irritating as though they were going down with some horrible sickness.
At last on the horizon I saw the reflection of the sea.
We had arrived in Brittany about, what, 400 miles or 8 hours drive from Paris. Spilling out of the car and stretching my cramped form I saw my next accommodation. A beautiful cottage farmhouse, low whitewashed walls and undulating pantile roof in tended gardens. This was the family rural retreat away from the grime and noise of the capital city.
Within a couple of hours the house was in quarantine.
Ann and the two brats had swollen up nastily with Scarlettine, scarlet fever.
Mr and Mrs were kept busy tending the awkward and needy sick. I was left to entertain myself. In the barn, adjacent to the house was an old but roadworthy bike, a real boneshaker. In the next few days I clocked up tens of miles in the rolling Breton countryside and soon perfected my favourite french phrase, 'Une biere blond, s'il vous plait".
In retrospect rather foolishly I carried no I.D, personal or contact details. I was briefly without name, country or permanent residence. A true alien. Imagine that scenario in current times.
Later on in the week the family emerged,slightly less swollen, blinking into the light for some activities. I was taken to a town called Guerande, saw acres and acres of salt marshes and learnt the term 'Paludier', farmer of salt. This knowledge earned me a subsequent merit in my french aural exam some months later.
Best of all, I spent many hours cycling along the Breton coast with its wide clean beaches below, sand dunes and small cafes, all serving my new favourite beverage.
I must have been a bit tipsy for the duration.
Indicated in sign language as the last day of the holiday I helped the re-assembled family to paddle about at the shoreline to excavate coquillages for a wonderful white wine enfused seafood stew.
Squashed again against Ann's chunky thigh I took pleasure in remembering my week in Brittany during the long drive back to the suburbs of Paris.
It had been a great excursion and the first of a few subsequent trips to France, a country that I felt quite at home in. I didn't bother to ask my parents if they had been asked to pay a ransom for my return.
Thursday 27 October 2011
Farming for Boys
At the age of 14 I wanted to be a farmer.
I was convinced about it and no parental logic could sway me. They did have a point as I had, just a few weeks prior, been convinced I wanted to join the army. As only wise parents can they would just gently guide and encourage me to find my true vocation. I hated that at the time. The whole agricultural career thing had really started after a holiday in Somerset staying on the farm of my Fathers' relatives. I suppose, at 14, I was at a delicate stage between being a stupid kid and wanting acceptance as a young adult. I felt that I could not do anything right in the eyes of my parents. It was partly justified as I had blown up the kitchen with volatile home made ginger beer, lost the keys to the house and was convinced that I had killed my Gran's dog. However, my parents did have faith in me. I hated that at the time.
Me and my two sisters were to set off a week ahead of the rest of the family to accept an invitation to stay for a few days with cousins in Taunton. We represented 3/7ths of the family and were put on the train at Scunthorpe with the other 4/7ths to travel later towing the caravan with the master plan that we would all meet up on the farm. In my mind I can visualise the departure on the train as somehow being in black and white and with me carrying a gas mask and string wrapped parcel. I was not however, an evacuee.
The train journey with a change at Birmingham was uneventful. No dodgy characters, no murders or sleuthing, no secret agent baggage drops. I must have been very heavily influenced by all things TV and movies at that age. It was still a big deal for the three of us who had never travelled unaccompanied before.
At Taunton we were welcomed by our Aunt and Uncle and had a busy few days being very well looked after. We went to some stately homes and learnt a lot. It was the summer holidays but there was educational content to be extracted from everything. We hated that at the time. We thoroughly tired out our, only two, cousins and they must have been mightily relieved when we departed for the next stage of our vacation.
The drive into the depths of Somerset was exciting in anticipation of what we could get up to. My fathers relatives had been builders in the immediate post war period in Croydon and North London so plenty of work was on hand to rebuild the bombed out housing. Their hard graft had made their reward a large detached house, white rendered and red rosemary tiled up a long rhododendron lined driveway and overlooking a deep, beautiful pastured valley with a trout filled river running through it. The house, a mansion in our eyes with an unprecedented two staircases, was part of a working farm with adjacent crew yard, pole barns and livestock pens. Some miles distant was the main dairy operation with about 70 friesian cows and the milking parlour.
The sights, smells and bustle of the place really caught my imagination. I had taken on board the dream of being a farmer without grasping that it actually required a lot of hard work. In the following week we were very enthusiastic young farmers and participated in all the day to day requirements of an industrial scale business. The pigs had to be fed and mucked out. They were quite smelly and the sows would easily roll onto and crush their young.Extracting the tiny dead piglets was quite interesting in a gory sort of way. At the dairy we helped to herd the cows and were amazed that all of the beasts were individually named and could be recognised by their markings. I could not see any difference at all. They were all, to me, identical. The highlight of the week was a sheep-drive from the main farm across to the pasture at the dairy farm. We shouted and hollered at the vague animals, guided and cajoled them with our wooden staffs and took great delight in holding up the traffic through the narrow, high banked lanes. The job seemed to be an epic of mile upon mile when in fact I think it was only quite a short distance.
The not so highlight of the week was cleaning out the sheep dip. This was akin to child labour. Between the metal arrival and departure pens was a concrete lined channel, tapered to a narrow trench and wide enough at the top for a fat sheeps girth. The dipping season had just finished and the residue in the gully was a noxious mix of diluted sheep droppings, wool ringlets and pungent chemicals. The latter, fortunately, largely cancelled out the former. Buckets and brooms were the weapons of choice. In the summer heat the task was quite unbearable but we completed it, much to the surprise of our hosts who had obviously set it as a challenge for the townie kids. Even now, some 34 years later I still get a faint taste of the toxic cocktail if I bite my fingernails.
The stay on the farm flew by and when the rest of the family brought the caravan down we were relegated from the big house to an impromptu camp site in a field in the valley. I was very much taken with the farming life and was in a right stropping mood for the duration with my parents. The holiday did continue in the lovely surroundings of deepest rural Somerset, we picked mushrooms, walked the old railway courses, picked wild flowers, threw stones from bridge parapets at the fish below and dared each other to touch both horizontal strands of the electric fence.
When the time to leave came I cried for what I was leaving behind. I sulked and was unbearable through the long drive home. I stomped up to my room when we reached what now seemed like a very tiny, shed like house with a single staircase. From my pockets I emptied out my collected mementos. Amongst the bits of dry straw in the lining was a twist of chemically soaked wool, a pebble which later degraded into an actual piece of animal dung, a tag from the ear of a cow and my herding staff which, with great difficulty, had made the journey back straddled by the occupants of a very crowded car. Within a few weeks my love affair with farmng was over.I was convinced that I wanted to be someone who did surveying or whatever that was. Just be careful what you wish for because in my case it did come true.
I was convinced about it and no parental logic could sway me. They did have a point as I had, just a few weeks prior, been convinced I wanted to join the army. As only wise parents can they would just gently guide and encourage me to find my true vocation. I hated that at the time. The whole agricultural career thing had really started after a holiday in Somerset staying on the farm of my Fathers' relatives. I suppose, at 14, I was at a delicate stage between being a stupid kid and wanting acceptance as a young adult. I felt that I could not do anything right in the eyes of my parents. It was partly justified as I had blown up the kitchen with volatile home made ginger beer, lost the keys to the house and was convinced that I had killed my Gran's dog. However, my parents did have faith in me. I hated that at the time.
Me and my two sisters were to set off a week ahead of the rest of the family to accept an invitation to stay for a few days with cousins in Taunton. We represented 3/7ths of the family and were put on the train at Scunthorpe with the other 4/7ths to travel later towing the caravan with the master plan that we would all meet up on the farm. In my mind I can visualise the departure on the train as somehow being in black and white and with me carrying a gas mask and string wrapped parcel. I was not however, an evacuee.
The train journey with a change at Birmingham was uneventful. No dodgy characters, no murders or sleuthing, no secret agent baggage drops. I must have been very heavily influenced by all things TV and movies at that age. It was still a big deal for the three of us who had never travelled unaccompanied before.
At Taunton we were welcomed by our Aunt and Uncle and had a busy few days being very well looked after. We went to some stately homes and learnt a lot. It was the summer holidays but there was educational content to be extracted from everything. We hated that at the time. We thoroughly tired out our, only two, cousins and they must have been mightily relieved when we departed for the next stage of our vacation.
The drive into the depths of Somerset was exciting in anticipation of what we could get up to. My fathers relatives had been builders in the immediate post war period in Croydon and North London so plenty of work was on hand to rebuild the bombed out housing. Their hard graft had made their reward a large detached house, white rendered and red rosemary tiled up a long rhododendron lined driveway and overlooking a deep, beautiful pastured valley with a trout filled river running through it. The house, a mansion in our eyes with an unprecedented two staircases, was part of a working farm with adjacent crew yard, pole barns and livestock pens. Some miles distant was the main dairy operation with about 70 friesian cows and the milking parlour.
The sights, smells and bustle of the place really caught my imagination. I had taken on board the dream of being a farmer without grasping that it actually required a lot of hard work. In the following week we were very enthusiastic young farmers and participated in all the day to day requirements of an industrial scale business. The pigs had to be fed and mucked out. They were quite smelly and the sows would easily roll onto and crush their young.Extracting the tiny dead piglets was quite interesting in a gory sort of way. At the dairy we helped to herd the cows and were amazed that all of the beasts were individually named and could be recognised by their markings. I could not see any difference at all. They were all, to me, identical. The highlight of the week was a sheep-drive from the main farm across to the pasture at the dairy farm. We shouted and hollered at the vague animals, guided and cajoled them with our wooden staffs and took great delight in holding up the traffic through the narrow, high banked lanes. The job seemed to be an epic of mile upon mile when in fact I think it was only quite a short distance.
The not so highlight of the week was cleaning out the sheep dip. This was akin to child labour. Between the metal arrival and departure pens was a concrete lined channel, tapered to a narrow trench and wide enough at the top for a fat sheeps girth. The dipping season had just finished and the residue in the gully was a noxious mix of diluted sheep droppings, wool ringlets and pungent chemicals. The latter, fortunately, largely cancelled out the former. Buckets and brooms were the weapons of choice. In the summer heat the task was quite unbearable but we completed it, much to the surprise of our hosts who had obviously set it as a challenge for the townie kids. Even now, some 34 years later I still get a faint taste of the toxic cocktail if I bite my fingernails.
The stay on the farm flew by and when the rest of the family brought the caravan down we were relegated from the big house to an impromptu camp site in a field in the valley. I was very much taken with the farming life and was in a right stropping mood for the duration with my parents. The holiday did continue in the lovely surroundings of deepest rural Somerset, we picked mushrooms, walked the old railway courses, picked wild flowers, threw stones from bridge parapets at the fish below and dared each other to touch both horizontal strands of the electric fence.
When the time to leave came I cried for what I was leaving behind. I sulked and was unbearable through the long drive home. I stomped up to my room when we reached what now seemed like a very tiny, shed like house with a single staircase. From my pockets I emptied out my collected mementos. Amongst the bits of dry straw in the lining was a twist of chemically soaked wool, a pebble which later degraded into an actual piece of animal dung, a tag from the ear of a cow and my herding staff which, with great difficulty, had made the journey back straddled by the occupants of a very crowded car. Within a few weeks my love affair with farmng was over.I was convinced that I wanted to be someone who did surveying or whatever that was. Just be careful what you wish for because in my case it did come true.
Wednesday 26 October 2011
Cube House
I think that I am still involved in a professional role in the periodic supervision of a Cube House being built in Hull. I am not sure because to my knowledge it is not yet finished after 11 years.
This Cube House is a pure bred example, and not the shameful lip service to the genre which is starting to emerge in the brochures of the mass volume, low quality, speculative builders. Their versions have all the external appearance of a Cube House but merely as cladding to a very ordinary design and construction format. It is as though the Corporates all got a copy of Grand Designs as a Christmas present and went berserk taking on board the stylish bits but deliberately ignoring the essential substance.
Hence, you may see amongst the characterless acres of housing estates called such derivative names as Shipman Road (no Doctors have purchased there), Blackwater Way (actually flooded in 2007) and Wankley Dell (made that one up), the emergence of coloured composite panels, ceramic tile elevational treatments, excessive square metres of opaque glass blocks and some oddly angled masonry or mock-effect fibre glass attachments.
The sad thing is that these crude and insulting embellishments are being fully accepted and enthused about by the house buying public, or at least those who have the sizeable deposit needed to pass through into the Mortgage Lounge of the financiers to meet their colleague representative advisory person (CRAP) and be sold not just a mortgage but break-down cover and a raffle ticket.
The real Cube House I mention was started in 2005 and is, on my informal passings,not ready for first occupation(2016). The timescale involved is not, get lost Kevin McCleod, due to complex structural or planning issues but because the Architect, Builder, Project Manager, Funder, Navvy, Powder monkey and Tea Boy are all the same person and at the same time holding down a day job.
By definition the construction has had to take place on the occasional evening during the week and with a more concentrated effort at weekends, during Bank Holidays and any general vacation entitlements. Add to these constraints a strong sense of authenticity and respect for the Cube House and great attention to detail and you have, dah, dah, dah . daaar, an 11 year labour of love.
My first site visit, way back then, was at the steelwork stage. The bright red oxide finish was a bit overpowering as well as the sheer size and scale of the skeletal frame over three equivalent storeys but yet long and narrow in dimensions.
The building plot just taking shape was located on a narrow strip of land adjacent to a cemetery . In the earliest stages of emergence the locals and passers-by thought the structure was going to be a public convenience and even a crematorium for the internees which says a lot for the role of a bright yellow Planning Notice on a lampost or the actual validity of writing to all surrounding households to inform them of what was going to be built.
With the steelwork in place the intermediate floors were positioned and then the elevational finishes could be erected. The main south face of the house consists entirely of glass blocks, individually sanded to combat any lethal solar magnifying effect and then mounted and reinforced in a framework. The appearance is exceptional in texture and impact. The eastern and northern elevations are fitted with a grey thermally insulated panelling and to the west, full floor to ceiling windows over the three floors.
The interior provides great flexibility as there are no load bearing requirements. Natural light comes in a softened hue through the glass wall onto the stairways and with large glazed apertures and light wells illuminating efficiently all of the accommodation.
A stainless steel staircase is suspended above the ground floor and appears to float. At the front of the ground floor is the principal living area. A large open plan arrangement includes a kitchen. The space is open and airy to a full two storey height. There is a further day room behind a balcony above and with bedrooms and bathrooms beyond and above.
Internal floor area at over 2000 square feet is more than double that available for the faux versions on a non-descript housing estate.
Of course, we are all a bit obsessed with how much a property is worth.
What price for 11 years of labour not to mention the thinking time during 11 years worth of waking hours?
What price for hundreds of journeys to and from the site, builders merchants and maintaining a lifestyle.
What price for missing out on time with family over 11 years?
It is not after all about price , it is about the underlying values.
This Cube House is a pure bred example, and not the shameful lip service to the genre which is starting to emerge in the brochures of the mass volume, low quality, speculative builders. Their versions have all the external appearance of a Cube House but merely as cladding to a very ordinary design and construction format. It is as though the Corporates all got a copy of Grand Designs as a Christmas present and went berserk taking on board the stylish bits but deliberately ignoring the essential substance.
Hence, you may see amongst the characterless acres of housing estates called such derivative names as Shipman Road (no Doctors have purchased there), Blackwater Way (actually flooded in 2007) and Wankley Dell (made that one up), the emergence of coloured composite panels, ceramic tile elevational treatments, excessive square metres of opaque glass blocks and some oddly angled masonry or mock-effect fibre glass attachments.
The sad thing is that these crude and insulting embellishments are being fully accepted and enthused about by the house buying public, or at least those who have the sizeable deposit needed to pass through into the Mortgage Lounge of the financiers to meet their colleague representative advisory person (CRAP) and be sold not just a mortgage but break-down cover and a raffle ticket.
The real Cube House I mention was started in 2005 and is, on my informal passings,not ready for first occupation(2016). The timescale involved is not, get lost Kevin McCleod, due to complex structural or planning issues but because the Architect, Builder, Project Manager, Funder, Navvy, Powder monkey and Tea Boy are all the same person and at the same time holding down a day job.
By definition the construction has had to take place on the occasional evening during the week and with a more concentrated effort at weekends, during Bank Holidays and any general vacation entitlements. Add to these constraints a strong sense of authenticity and respect for the Cube House and great attention to detail and you have, dah, dah, dah . daaar, an 11 year labour of love.
My first site visit, way back then, was at the steelwork stage. The bright red oxide finish was a bit overpowering as well as the sheer size and scale of the skeletal frame over three equivalent storeys but yet long and narrow in dimensions.
The building plot just taking shape was located on a narrow strip of land adjacent to a cemetery . In the earliest stages of emergence the locals and passers-by thought the structure was going to be a public convenience and even a crematorium for the internees which says a lot for the role of a bright yellow Planning Notice on a lampost or the actual validity of writing to all surrounding households to inform them of what was going to be built.
With the steelwork in place the intermediate floors were positioned and then the elevational finishes could be erected. The main south face of the house consists entirely of glass blocks, individually sanded to combat any lethal solar magnifying effect and then mounted and reinforced in a framework. The appearance is exceptional in texture and impact. The eastern and northern elevations are fitted with a grey thermally insulated panelling and to the west, full floor to ceiling windows over the three floors.
The interior provides great flexibility as there are no load bearing requirements. Natural light comes in a softened hue through the glass wall onto the stairways and with large glazed apertures and light wells illuminating efficiently all of the accommodation.
A stainless steel staircase is suspended above the ground floor and appears to float. At the front of the ground floor is the principal living area. A large open plan arrangement includes a kitchen. The space is open and airy to a full two storey height. There is a further day room behind a balcony above and with bedrooms and bathrooms beyond and above.
Internal floor area at over 2000 square feet is more than double that available for the faux versions on a non-descript housing estate.
Of course, we are all a bit obsessed with how much a property is worth.
What price for 11 years of labour not to mention the thinking time during 11 years worth of waking hours?
What price for hundreds of journeys to and from the site, builders merchants and maintaining a lifestyle.
What price for missing out on time with family over 11 years?
It is not after all about price , it is about the underlying values.
Tuesday 25 October 2011
Happy Chappy
In my childhood days well before the X-box, child welfare issues and the stranger-danger campaign I used to range about widely through my home area because that was my territory and I knew it well. My world was as far as I could travel on foot or by bike but still be within sight and sound of home or familiar landmarks.
I was fortunate in living in a small town and on the very edge of it so that I could just take a few steps from the garden into endless acres which were a ready made playground. Our house was the last of Phase 1 of an estate and for many years stood at the terminus of the tarmac road with just a rough bulldozed bank onto the headland of the adjacent agricultural field. Me and my mates, usually quite a large crowd of locals, would regularly use the raised mound as a ramp for bikes or home made karts. During one scheduled Evil Knievel reshaping we were delighted to hit water. We had tapped into the course of an otherwise concealed underground spring. This provide hours of muddy entertainment until our replica of the Hoover Dam burst and flooded out the street. Just beyond the built up extent of the estate of neo-Georgian houses was a very steep sided pit. This became our planet Mars or the topical Sea of Tranquility and we were intergalactic explorers with the smaller, weak kids being hapless aliens to be captured and vaporised. When Phase 2 of the residential estate forged ahead some years later the builders simply filled in the hole and built houses on top. We had a small wager on which property would sink first into the made up ground. Our parents were upset not by the encroachment of other houses but because they had lost their dumping ground for garden waste and now had to labour off to the Council Tip with cars or trailers laden with cuttings and branches. The subsequent building site was a great source of materials for dens and inventions. I soon assembled a very large collection of stainless steel, butterfly shaped objects with a wire twist in the middle. These were either lying on the ground or could be prised out of the emerging walls of the houses. With hindsight I understand these wall ties did serve some structural purpose. Perhaps I should have started a wager on which property would collapse first. The farmers fields were flanked by drainage ditches and although these did not seem to flow or go anywhere they were teeming with life. We extracted, with our seaside holiday shrimping nets, sticklebacks, tadpoles and the occasional frog or newt. These were carefully transported home in buckets or jam jars to be exhibited proudly to the grown ups before we lost interest. I like to think my parents returned the creatures to their watercourse after my bedtime. The public footpath which led to the fishing grounds was the gateway to another area for exploration. Carrying on eastwards away from the housing estate the path ran paralell to a busy railway line which carried freight and a few passenger trains from Grimsby Docks. There was a deep cutting and from the top of the embankment we could look down on the shiny tracks but we had no viscious or malicious thoughts on trying to derail or bombard the trains. The attraction of the clay bank was the discovery of fossils and many large examples were prized out and lugged home. We looked them up in my parents extensive collection of Readers Digest reference books and our finds were regular 'show and tell' exhibits at school. At a spur in the footpath a northward turn would take us towards a stone building which stood isolated in the very middle of a large often cultivated field. This was strictly out of bounds on a self imposed basis. One night, from my bedroom window, I had seen car lights in the field illuminating the building. I was sure I saw two figures emerge and drag something heavy through the doorway into the structure and then hastily leave. This event became our urban myth to add to many others which kept us frightened and alert to danger, more so than any TV campaign could from the increasing level of intrusion by do-gooders and child welfare workers. We also kept away from Pingley Camp. This had been a Prisoner of War camp and the single storey and grim buildings had survived largely intact. At face value an ideal playground but there had been a murder there in the early 1970's and that was enough to offset our natural curiosity for all things military. The town had a river running through it and we would often bike along the bank or near by tracks. It was on one such excursion that I saw the bloated body of a small white dog all pumped up with the gas of decomposition. I was not sure if it had fallen in the river and, unable to climb the bank, had drowned, or had been thrown in deliberately. Surprisingly this did not upset me too much. I think this was because the football shaped thing was not intstantly recognisable as someones pet. I was a keen runner and often did many laps around the estate. I was open to allcomers in a timed lap but managed to keep the record until we moved out of the area. During one jogging session with my mother around the edge of the just harvested field at the back of our house we were approached by the irate farmer who really launched into a tirade against townies using his land as a recreation ground. He later apologised when he realised that my father was his Bank Manager. I attributed his outburst to the fact that through his married daughter he had someone called Enoch Powell as an in-law. It sounded quite a logical explanation to me at the time as my parents would often mention that name in an agitated tone as though they knew him and his ways as well. Inevitably I slowly left behind my childhood ways and new groups of children on the estate would take over the playground. There was a disturbing trend with this new generation with the builders, who were still active on Phase 3 and beyond, reporting acts of vandalism and unsettling, albeit mispelt graffitti on the part erected shells of the houses. I recently passed through the old and now a bit tacky looking 40 year old estate on my way back from some tiresome business meeting. I was disappointed that no one at all was playing out or ranging about. It was a lovely evening but the streets and by-ways were deserted. The only signs of life were the flicker of TV's behind net curtains and the faint thump, thump of the soundtrack of a video-game in collective unison.
I was fortunate in living in a small town and on the very edge of it so that I could just take a few steps from the garden into endless acres which were a ready made playground. Our house was the last of Phase 1 of an estate and for many years stood at the terminus of the tarmac road with just a rough bulldozed bank onto the headland of the adjacent agricultural field. Me and my mates, usually quite a large crowd of locals, would regularly use the raised mound as a ramp for bikes or home made karts. During one scheduled Evil Knievel reshaping we were delighted to hit water. We had tapped into the course of an otherwise concealed underground spring. This provide hours of muddy entertainment until our replica of the Hoover Dam burst and flooded out the street. Just beyond the built up extent of the estate of neo-Georgian houses was a very steep sided pit. This became our planet Mars or the topical Sea of Tranquility and we were intergalactic explorers with the smaller, weak kids being hapless aliens to be captured and vaporised. When Phase 2 of the residential estate forged ahead some years later the builders simply filled in the hole and built houses on top. We had a small wager on which property would sink first into the made up ground. Our parents were upset not by the encroachment of other houses but because they had lost their dumping ground for garden waste and now had to labour off to the Council Tip with cars or trailers laden with cuttings and branches. The subsequent building site was a great source of materials for dens and inventions. I soon assembled a very large collection of stainless steel, butterfly shaped objects with a wire twist in the middle. These were either lying on the ground or could be prised out of the emerging walls of the houses. With hindsight I understand these wall ties did serve some structural purpose. Perhaps I should have started a wager on which property would collapse first. The farmers fields were flanked by drainage ditches and although these did not seem to flow or go anywhere they were teeming with life. We extracted, with our seaside holiday shrimping nets, sticklebacks, tadpoles and the occasional frog or newt. These were carefully transported home in buckets or jam jars to be exhibited proudly to the grown ups before we lost interest. I like to think my parents returned the creatures to their watercourse after my bedtime. The public footpath which led to the fishing grounds was the gateway to another area for exploration. Carrying on eastwards away from the housing estate the path ran paralell to a busy railway line which carried freight and a few passenger trains from Grimsby Docks. There was a deep cutting and from the top of the embankment we could look down on the shiny tracks but we had no viscious or malicious thoughts on trying to derail or bombard the trains. The attraction of the clay bank was the discovery of fossils and many large examples were prized out and lugged home. We looked them up in my parents extensive collection of Readers Digest reference books and our finds were regular 'show and tell' exhibits at school. At a spur in the footpath a northward turn would take us towards a stone building which stood isolated in the very middle of a large often cultivated field. This was strictly out of bounds on a self imposed basis. One night, from my bedroom window, I had seen car lights in the field illuminating the building. I was sure I saw two figures emerge and drag something heavy through the doorway into the structure and then hastily leave. This event became our urban myth to add to many others which kept us frightened and alert to danger, more so than any TV campaign could from the increasing level of intrusion by do-gooders and child welfare workers. We also kept away from Pingley Camp. This had been a Prisoner of War camp and the single storey and grim buildings had survived largely intact. At face value an ideal playground but there had been a murder there in the early 1970's and that was enough to offset our natural curiosity for all things military. The town had a river running through it and we would often bike along the bank or near by tracks. It was on one such excursion that I saw the bloated body of a small white dog all pumped up with the gas of decomposition. I was not sure if it had fallen in the river and, unable to climb the bank, had drowned, or had been thrown in deliberately. Surprisingly this did not upset me too much. I think this was because the football shaped thing was not intstantly recognisable as someones pet. I was a keen runner and often did many laps around the estate. I was open to allcomers in a timed lap but managed to keep the record until we moved out of the area. During one jogging session with my mother around the edge of the just harvested field at the back of our house we were approached by the irate farmer who really launched into a tirade against townies using his land as a recreation ground. He later apologised when he realised that my father was his Bank Manager. I attributed his outburst to the fact that through his married daughter he had someone called Enoch Powell as an in-law. It sounded quite a logical explanation to me at the time as my parents would often mention that name in an agitated tone as though they knew him and his ways as well. Inevitably I slowly left behind my childhood ways and new groups of children on the estate would take over the playground. There was a disturbing trend with this new generation with the builders, who were still active on Phase 3 and beyond, reporting acts of vandalism and unsettling, albeit mispelt graffitti on the part erected shells of the houses. I recently passed through the old and now a bit tacky looking 40 year old estate on my way back from some tiresome business meeting. I was disappointed that no one at all was playing out or ranging about. It was a lovely evening but the streets and by-ways were deserted. The only signs of life were the flicker of TV's behind net curtains and the faint thump, thump of the soundtrack of a video-game in collective unison.
Monday 24 October 2011
A Taste of Paradise
Shipbuilding and Repairing was one of the oldest and most important local industries in Hull with documented yards, Staithes and docks along the course of the tidal River Hull from 1427. Not an unusual industrial process for a port town but able to thrive over many others because of the availability of oak from the hinterland and the trade with Europe for Baltic mast spars (big tree trunks) and good quality sail cloth. Some of the dry dock basins survive today but only just. The river corridor has been identified for large scale redevelopment along the lines of a casino complex and combined commercial, retail and residential blocks. As with most ambitious and speculative projects in recessionary times there is a prolonged stay of execution for the inevitable infilling and destruction of these architectural features. Most of the activity was around the west bank of the river running paralell to the historic Old Town and High Street. Early hand drawn maps of this location, even before the construction of the dock basins, clearly show symbolic ships hulls on the mud as a statement of intent for the merchants and entrepreneurs of the time. The subsequent permanent sites included North Bridge Yard, Number One Dry Dock, the South End Graving Dock and the most well known being Blaydes Shipyard. It was in the yard of Benjamin Blaydes that he commissioned, for his own fleet , a small hardy collier ship in the name of Bethia in 1784. The vessel was just 2 inches short of 91 feet long and with a beam of 24'4". Cost to build was recorded at £1950 , roughly £195,000 in current monies. A short time after launch and sea trials the stocky Bethia, fully expected to ply her trade around the coastal waters of the UK was purchased by The Royal Navy at an enhanced price of £2600 turning Mr Blaydes a tidy profit. The ship was renamed The Bounty and the rest is history or at least the Hollywood version of events, perhaps a waste of paradise. My often dormant but lingering interest in Hull's maritime heritage and in particular taking the wrapper off The Bounty story was sparked by an advertisement by a US based yacht agency. The 1961 built replica of The Bounty or should it be just Bounty, is on the market for US$4.6m . The ship was custom made for the 1962 epic Mutiny on The...... film and has been well preserved and almost fully rebuilt on a regular basis. The replica was built on the original Admiralty Archive blueprints but as a concession for the equipment and logistics of movie making the dimensions were scaled up to 180 feet long and with a 32 foot beam. The reason, the cameras needed considerable space for operation and action shots. In 1790 The Bounty was torched by the mutineers. For authenticity this was the full intention of the Director, Lewis Milestone but it appears that Marlon Brando kicked up such a fuss that the ship was spared this fate. I have yet to see this version of the film to determine if a balsa wood model filled with lighter fluid was substituted in the closing scenes or whether a very early and bright around the edges form of CGI was used. I have not seen what the co-stars Trevor Howard and Richard Harris had to say on the subject. What is on offer for the amount of US$4.6m? The true Bounty was pretty small and a full crew was only 44 officers and men. The replica, a real party boat can accommodate 150 revellers on deck or 49 berthed sleepovers. The luxury package caters for only 12 passengers. There is 100,000 square feet of sail in full trim but I cannot really see the guests mucking in by climbing the rigging. Fletcher Christian would certainly have welcomed the modern concession of twin diesel engines. Otherwise, it is all there. 3 masted, spanker boom, topgallant and other nautical equipment I am not sure about. The ship is in regular use and has just completed its 2011 tour of UK waters, Belgium and Scandinavia before returning to its US base but why not a quick visit to Hull? Ironically, replica Bounty will have crossed the latitude of the Humber a few times in its summer excursions and there would be a tremendous interest in even a short layover given the origins of the legend. I cannot promise any serious expressions of interest to purchase the vessel amongst the proud citizens of Hull but the queues on the quayside ready to mount the gang plank would be guaranteed. When it comes to remembering the maritime heritage of the city this sort of thing really floats our boat.
Sunday 23 October 2011
Ferry Interesting
Usually by poor planning I was often the last passenger to get aboard the old Humber Ferry as it prepared to cast off and head from New Holland on the south bank across to the Corporation Pier at the end of Queen Street in Hull. My family had moved from Brigg, in Lincolnshire to Beverley some 8 miles north of Hull in the august of 1979. My mates and formative years, I felt, had been left behind and until I became settled in the new house, school and town I found myself drawn back to familiar Brigg for weekends. My peer group had just got through our 'O' Levels and before the results were known we intended to party hard through the summer. It was the time of party cans of beer and my friends all had older brothers who could get it for us. I cadged space on the floors of friends but as we were too young to drive we had the embarassment of having to rely on respective parents for lifts. The drive to catch the return ferry on a sunday afternoon was always rushed. The roads to the ferry were all very rural and usually clogged with farmers harvesting , day-trippers looking for a pub lunch or somewhere to park up and read the papers. We usually arrived a bit like the flying squad in a cloud of dust and spray of gravel after having to make up time in the last couple of miles after a very slow impeded journey. Those arriving by train at the pier were taken straight down to the slipway but foot passengers had to endure the seemingly endless and often weather beaten walk on the old sleeper boards with the mud or tideline visible through the gaps. Although last on the walkway I could see other poor souls making the same last ditch effort to catch the ferry and the whole scene must have looked a bit like a maniacal version of the Olympic walking event where everyone was cheating. It certainly caused shin ache and a lot of subsequent attempts to conceal either a very poor level of overall fitness or a skinful of beer the night before. I could barely speak if I had participated in the jetty sprint. Once on board I could settle myself and regain some composure before seeking out a cup of tea or staying up on deck to observe the crossing. The journey usually took between 20 minutes and half an hour dependant on the strength of the tide but each sailing was slightly different in its initial direction to get into the deep water channel. The New Holland pier was directly opposite the St Andrew's Dock but the actual plotted course was quite tortuous to reach the Hull Pier adjacent to the old horsewash further to the east. My older sister, on a crossing from Hull , along with a full contingent of passengers had to be recovered from the ferry by another vessel after it had run aground or broken down or both. The ferry to Hull had figured a lot in my teenage years. I had travelled on it during an exchange weekend with a scout troop in the west of the city. Coming from a small and sleepy market town of about 3500 population it was a big event to go to a huge city like Hull with its built up skyline including and high rise blocks . I was usually quite anxious. My fears were of course wholly unjustified and irrational but played upon by the great mistrust between the north and south humber residents that must have been brewing unhealthily since at least Roman times if not before in pre-history. On family shopping trips we would insist that our first stop was at Sydney Scarborough's, a record shop under Hull City Hall and with two floors of vinyl and pop artefacts. A wondrous place after being restricted to a record counter in our small town's Woolworths which only stocked the some of the top 20 singles on a good day. The ferry boats carried passengers and cars and was always, in my memory, busy being an essential form of transport where the equivalent road trip was in excess of 60 miles the long way around via the Boothferry Bridge. I think that my last use of the ferry was shortly before the service was scrapped as it made way for the Humber Bridge. The vast project to complete the suspension bridge was in clear view of the ferry route for many years and must have been morale sapping for the crew and operational staff. The ferry boats fared very differently after being withdrawn from service. The paddle steamer Lincoln Castle was for a short time moored at the foot of the North tower of the Humber Bridge and run as a pub and later in the same role in Grimsby before rotting away and suffering an unceremonious scrapping. Her sister vessel, PS Tattershall Castle managed to escape to London in 1981 and remains moored as a landmark on The Embankment and I understand has recently been refitted at great cost. I am sure that I will have also been aboard The Wingfield Castle prior to its withdrawal from service in 1974. She lives on the historic Hartlepool waterfront as an attraction of the maritime heritage of that town. I sometimes go down to the Pier for a quiet moment of reflection although the area is far from a derelict backwater. The Deep, just on the old Sammy's Point at the mouth of the River Hull is a major draw for visitors who invariably stray across to experience the sights and sounds of the Old Pier. The grand ticket office is now converted into stylish apartments .Long gone are the days of a last gasp dash from the ticket office to the Pier other than to get the last latte of the day at the small Cafe that now occupies the surviving and thriving riverside buildings.
Saturday 22 October 2011
The Cellar of Dreams
I helped to clear the cellar today, it was the domain of my father,
Everything there was a reminder of his endeavours and interests
A few bottles of home brewed wine sat high on a shelf,
An unpacked box contained an engine part and brake shoes,
A full set of plastic wheel trims and a collection of car radios
were placed carefully for when they were needed by us
or his grandchildren ,in vehicles they would one day own.
A tin of paint for every eventuality of mishap or damage,
Slotted screws, nuts and bolts, masonry and wood nails
Something to fix together anything to anything and anywhere.
Spare plugs and wires, a compendium of tools of all guages
Some artefacts that we could only guess for what purpose but
ultimately useful and ready to hand when the need arose.
A years energy supply contained in battery form AA, AAA, SP1
and the equipment to tell what was a good bulb and not
Self sufficiency in the components to build a bike or maintain many,
enough inner tubes and puncture repair kits for riding a glass shard road,
The wrapped up bumper for a Ford Fiesta, a Scirocco grille.
Any request we would have could be supplied from his archive.
Even if we perhaps tried to test his system with a far fetched idea
My father would have the correct item and quantity to make
our own dreams a reality and he made things happen for us all.
The cellar is now clear but we have kept the essentials safe
stored in our hearts and memories and we are equipped for anything.
Everything there was a reminder of his endeavours and interests
A few bottles of home brewed wine sat high on a shelf,
An unpacked box contained an engine part and brake shoes,
A full set of plastic wheel trims and a collection of car radios
were placed carefully for when they were needed by us
or his grandchildren ,in vehicles they would one day own.
A tin of paint for every eventuality of mishap or damage,
Slotted screws, nuts and bolts, masonry and wood nails
Something to fix together anything to anything and anywhere.
Spare plugs and wires, a compendium of tools of all guages
Some artefacts that we could only guess for what purpose but
ultimately useful and ready to hand when the need arose.
A years energy supply contained in battery form AA, AAA, SP1
and the equipment to tell what was a good bulb and not
Self sufficiency in the components to build a bike or maintain many,
enough inner tubes and puncture repair kits for riding a glass shard road,
The wrapped up bumper for a Ford Fiesta, a Scirocco grille.
Any request we would have could be supplied from his archive.
Even if we perhaps tried to test his system with a far fetched idea
My father would have the correct item and quantity to make
our own dreams a reality and he made things happen for us all.
The cellar is now clear but we have kept the essentials safe
stored in our hearts and memories and we are equipped for anything.
Morning Glory
The first waking moments in a new house are amongst the most confusing. The whole dynamic had changed and it took me a good few minutes to orientate myself to where I was and to tune in to the fresh sounds and acclimatise to the smells of the place on that first morning at Westwood Road. My awakening was one of reluctance and slow realisation that I was in a new town, a new county and at a new phase in my own life. Reluctance because I was now nearly an adult, two more years at a new school before big decisions had to be made for the course of the rest of my life, as I saw it at the age of 17. Slow realisation because I was dazzled into waking up by the absence of curtains in a south-east facing bedroom window giving no respite from the bright early morning sun. I squeezed shut my eyes. The bright sun still permeated through in an orangey hue. Slowly and deliberately squinting my eyes I could play with the strands and flecks of light and bounce that inevitable black dot up and down in a Youngs' fringes type appearance of whatever dwelt between my eyeballs and eyelids. This served as a delaying tactic to confronting the day. I found it very difficult to cope with change. This was a big problem for me but why had I not got used to it? My father's job did mean that we moved every four years to six years on average, geographically northwards and broadly alphabetically. Amongst my four siblings these uprootings did fall well into my critical life stages and coincided with my schooling at infants, juniors, Grammar school and the educational stages of, in particular, the old eleven plus, GCSE O' Levels, which I had just completed, and now forging on to Advanced level. I felt sorry for my older sister as these same convenient steps for me caused her most disruption, the flitting interrupting her studying and exams in mid stream at all stages. In the old house I had slept orientated from north to south. I had read avidly on all things spooky, UFO'ey and urban mythy and had been relieved that my sleeping position was just about magnetic north aligned and unlikely to upset any Ley lines. Looking back I was stupidly superstitious but this , in retrospect, was part of a teenagers feelings of mortality. The same bed , whilst not officially aligned in my new bedroom ,sat east to west and I started to become anxious whether this would upset my whole existence in the cosmos. The other major change was that I had a room to myself in the bigger new house. In my opinion, the best in the house, although I do not now recall if the five of us children dibbed or campaigned actively for the rooms we actually ended up with. The room was right at the top of the three storey house, a 1898 built terraced monster, mellow yellow brick, double bay frontage and draughty original sash cord hung windows. My parents had searched for a couple of years for the most suitable house to accommodate our larger than the average post nuclear sized family unit. This will not have been easy in a pricier location. As a compromise the new house was purchased with a combination of the proceeds of the previous sale and from the funds from the sale of Gran's bungalow on the condition that she moved and lived with us. The larger than average post nuclear sized family unit was now at the maximum 8 persons. I had plans for my own room. A wall to be dedicated to The Jam, another for my posters, although these had not travelled well with the move. Given free rein within reason I would put the old drop down leaf and 2 drawer writing bureau in the alcove of the dormer window. The top floor bedroom gave a great view down into the street and across the rooftops of the lower terraced cottages opposite and beyond. I soon got used to hanging out of the window to pose, as though I owned the place, or to ease a thick head from my first real experiences of Special Brew. So this was the new place. I had not figured in its selection or subsequent viewing apart from a short drive-by on the way to visiting where I would be schooled for my Sixth Form years. It looked very imposing and was opposite a whitewash rendered Pub. As a teenager just developing a taste and appreciation for all things beer this scored highly on my mental checklist of what would make a good location. I was at last fully awake. The unfamiliar surroundings suddenly became my home to the soundtrack of my mother calling us for breakfast, my father working to put up curtain tracking, my two younger brothers charging about in exploring mode and my two sisters starting to unpack their possessions from the move with Radio 1 blaring out to 'Video killed the radio star' by the Buggles.
Friday 21 October 2011
Multi Storey Horse Park
A fact of life about a car journey to any major town and city is the fully expected difficulty in getting parked.
Not just parked, but in a safe, accessible place and above all at ,what would be regarded as, a reasonable cost.
Income from parking fees is undoubtedly a very lucrative stream of cash for the council owned car parks but so are capital receipts for selling the sites of car parks for development. The vicious circle goes like this. Little or no city centre parking forces shoppers to the privately developed out of town retail centres where there is ample free parking. The city centre retailers react angrily and the council has to provide park and ride services to ensure that the retailers thrive and can afford to pay the business rates into council coffers. This brings trade back to the city and then bus fares go up or cannot any longer be subsidised so people once again take to their cars and search out parking. Developers review and see a viable city centre and require land to build. Blah, de Blah ....so...the council sells any car parking land for development.
This is certainly not a modern phenomena.
Substitute the car with a horse and 1890's Hull had a huge problem. The wonderful bromide prints of Hull from the mid to late 19th Century are awash with fine buildings, interesting frock coated or long skirted characters, grubby faced urchins and also piles of horse dung.
The answer, an enterprising carriage builder Mr Annison built an early multi storey horse park just on the eastern edge of Hull Old Town. Location is everything and Annisons Corner, Witham was ideally positioned for those travelling to the City from the Holderness villages out towards the North Sea Coast but also convenient for those living in the central area who had a requirement for a horse for personal use or to pull a carriage but as always had no-where practical to keep it.
Mr Annison had plenty of surplus and available space at his main works for the manufacture and sales of his products, fine covered carriages to impress the neighbours, dog carts a bit like the modern Ford Fiesta and sporty models to thrill at speeds in excess of 4mph. It was good business to draw in a horse owner customer base and the Witham complex, in recent years fully restored, retains the preserved stabling at first floor level above the shop frontage.
I have had the opportunity to inspect the building post-restoration and it is a fascinating example of function and style in Victorian commerce. The horse stalls are accessible from the inner courtyard with a wide and fairly steep cerrated concrete ramp. The first floor stable level has perhaps 30 to 40 horse capacity and the wooden stalls are in good condition. The whole loft area is illuminated by large glazed skylights running almost the full length. I can just imagine the trepidation of the stable staff in having to clean out the beasts and those working in the shops below for any signs of leakage which would be inevitable through even the most substantial intermediate floor.
A full livery service was offered from Witham and was evidently well patronised. The carriage making business had peaked by the early 1900's but the premises continued in use as a well known undertakers well into the twentieth century. Horse drawn hearses were and still remain popular for high profile funerals and the workshops were easily adaptable as undercover parking for the grand carriages and trappings.
The premises were a very sorry sight in the 1980's and 90's in semi dereliction and not far off demolition to accommodate road alterations at a very busy city junction and convergence of the main Holderness Road with the North Bridge river crossing, Great Union Street and Cleveland Street. The building today has a large dispensing chemists occupying the ground floor shop units. The three storey mid section of the building under a distinctive Mansard slate roof provided proprietors or staff quarters but only for those with a very poor sense of smell. This is also occupied and must be an excellent vantage point to experience the comings and goings of a large city.The English Heritage link is of the building in the 80's and in a state of obvious decline. The stabling is located behind the inset brick panels either side of the maisonette and with an archway through to the courtyard.
http://viewfinder.english-heritage.org.uk/search/detail.aspx?uid=1231
The restoration has been excellent and a labour of love over and above any commercial or economic reasoning for its salvation. The road junction remains frantic and manic at the best of times and the concentration required by road users to get through the bottleneck means that little or no attention is given to observing or noticing the building or what it has contributed to the livelihood and income of many people for over 100 years and hopefully will continue to do so into the future.
The photograph link below is of the restored building but before the chemist shop moved in. It must have been taken early on a sunday with the absence of traffic being very apparent.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/522828
Not just parked, but in a safe, accessible place and above all at ,what would be regarded as, a reasonable cost.
Income from parking fees is undoubtedly a very lucrative stream of cash for the council owned car parks but so are capital receipts for selling the sites of car parks for development. The vicious circle goes like this. Little or no city centre parking forces shoppers to the privately developed out of town retail centres where there is ample free parking. The city centre retailers react angrily and the council has to provide park and ride services to ensure that the retailers thrive and can afford to pay the business rates into council coffers. This brings trade back to the city and then bus fares go up or cannot any longer be subsidised so people once again take to their cars and search out parking. Developers review and see a viable city centre and require land to build. Blah, de Blah ....so...the council sells any car parking land for development.
This is certainly not a modern phenomena.
Substitute the car with a horse and 1890's Hull had a huge problem. The wonderful bromide prints of Hull from the mid to late 19th Century are awash with fine buildings, interesting frock coated or long skirted characters, grubby faced urchins and also piles of horse dung.
The answer, an enterprising carriage builder Mr Annison built an early multi storey horse park just on the eastern edge of Hull Old Town. Location is everything and Annisons Corner, Witham was ideally positioned for those travelling to the City from the Holderness villages out towards the North Sea Coast but also convenient for those living in the central area who had a requirement for a horse for personal use or to pull a carriage but as always had no-where practical to keep it.
Mr Annison had plenty of surplus and available space at his main works for the manufacture and sales of his products, fine covered carriages to impress the neighbours, dog carts a bit like the modern Ford Fiesta and sporty models to thrill at speeds in excess of 4mph. It was good business to draw in a horse owner customer base and the Witham complex, in recent years fully restored, retains the preserved stabling at first floor level above the shop frontage.
I have had the opportunity to inspect the building post-restoration and it is a fascinating example of function and style in Victorian commerce. The horse stalls are accessible from the inner courtyard with a wide and fairly steep cerrated concrete ramp. The first floor stable level has perhaps 30 to 40 horse capacity and the wooden stalls are in good condition. The whole loft area is illuminated by large glazed skylights running almost the full length. I can just imagine the trepidation of the stable staff in having to clean out the beasts and those working in the shops below for any signs of leakage which would be inevitable through even the most substantial intermediate floor.
A full livery service was offered from Witham and was evidently well patronised. The carriage making business had peaked by the early 1900's but the premises continued in use as a well known undertakers well into the twentieth century. Horse drawn hearses were and still remain popular for high profile funerals and the workshops were easily adaptable as undercover parking for the grand carriages and trappings.
The premises were a very sorry sight in the 1980's and 90's in semi dereliction and not far off demolition to accommodate road alterations at a very busy city junction and convergence of the main Holderness Road with the North Bridge river crossing, Great Union Street and Cleveland Street. The building today has a large dispensing chemists occupying the ground floor shop units. The three storey mid section of the building under a distinctive Mansard slate roof provided proprietors or staff quarters but only for those with a very poor sense of smell. This is also occupied and must be an excellent vantage point to experience the comings and goings of a large city.The English Heritage link is of the building in the 80's and in a state of obvious decline. The stabling is located behind the inset brick panels either side of the maisonette and with an archway through to the courtyard.
http://viewfinder.english-heritage.org.uk/search/detail.aspx?uid=1231
The restoration has been excellent and a labour of love over and above any commercial or economic reasoning for its salvation. The road junction remains frantic and manic at the best of times and the concentration required by road users to get through the bottleneck means that little or no attention is given to observing or noticing the building or what it has contributed to the livelihood and income of many people for over 100 years and hopefully will continue to do so into the future.
The photograph link below is of the restored building but before the chemist shop moved in. It must have been taken early on a sunday with the absence of traffic being very apparent.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/522828
Thursday 20 October 2011
Union Meeting
Me and The Boy have just come back from our first Union meeting. Drove all the way to York on a cold October evening only to find it didn't start until 7.30pm so rather than queue outside the really ugly City centre combined shopping precinct/pub/entertainment venue which was a bit of a concrete wind tunnel we opted for a semi-historical tour of the nicer parts of York. Not a lot of shops open or services offered even just after the workers have left for the suburbs which is typically English and a shame as there were still plenty of people milling about. The larger shop chains will however have identified through very expensive Market Research that the demographic of those in the central York City area after 6.30pm are either hard up students heading for a happy hour in a pub, foreign language students looking for a McDonalds or affluent tourists determined to get a table at Betty's famous tea rooms without having to stand in line, outside, for two hours. I can personally verify that the results of the research are true especially on a dark, chilly wednesday in late autumn. My own shoppers survey did involve perching on a high stool and eating an extra-value Big-Mac listening to a large group of young students wearing identical yellow cagoules and backpacks bearing a logo from "The Oxford English School" or similar.
Surprisingly for such a genteel place as York there was a lot of siren noise from emergency vehicles as though something big had kicked off. We left the loosely termed restaurant and, hit with the cold air of the night, walked quickly towards the venue for the Union meeting. There were some dodgy characters about and they all seemed to be heading in the same direction as us. Bald headed and thick necked men who looked like nightclub bouncers, senior citizens with long straggly hair and the possibility of a small pony tail, spotty faced youths overheard recounting word for word the scripts of Monty Python whilst wielding their best Warhammer Claymore against fictional middle earth residents, a few accompanied women certainly reluctant wives and girlfriends of their T shirt clad menfolk and then our sub-group of very normal and quite boring Dads and their sons. I had to accept responsibility for my son, aged 16, in a verbal pledge to the doorstaff and was given a wristband which was cool for a 48 year old although it was well-hidden under my sensibly thick coat sleeves. The Union had booked a very dingy room down a series of stairwells very much like a bunker with low ceiling height, camouflage webbing concealing potential structural cracks and, as a hazard to anyone over 6 foot, a thickly set , sharp artex plastered coating to the reinforced concrete ceiling which made any enthusiastic leaping or pogo-ing fatal. Me and The Boy mingled with the murmuring crowd. There were two licensed bar areas and attendees were four to five deep at the bar which only seemed to serve draught beer. Under foot there was the constant crunch of discarded plastic glasses. The atmosphere was already a bit charged. On the stage area there was a warm up act, a group of southerners who complained that their van had broken down as an explanation for their late arrival. They were followed by a very noisy group of Irish and Scots, a bit militant and inconsiderate to the York crowd by insisting that the city was famous for Vikings (correct, thanks Wikipedia) and Pies? They did not really have much to say and I could not identify with their words and actions. I did have a good view of the stage but for some reason and whatever crowded situation I find myself in I am always in the position where people cross through the room
directly in front of me or push in. A chunky man, shaved head tried to edge me out by standing immediately to my right and then shuffling and manouevring his left shoulder in very delicate movements to get in front of me and block my direct view. I countered his every move and he eventually gave up the micro-chess game and I later saw him stage right but doing the same thing. The room lighting dimmed and the stage lights pulsed red and white. The audience cheered and clapped. The PA system started to play a song I hadn't heard for some considerable time but I automatically knew the words, as did the crowd. "You won't get me I'm part of the Union, ditto, ditto.....'til the day I die". To this raucous introduction the band came on stage and launched into the current single from their second album. The Union had started their UK tour and 90 minutes later me and The Boy, ears ringing, were singing and humming ,either openly or quietly in our head, on our way to find the car before returning home.
It will all make sense with the following....................
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03ELlaWWADk
Surprisingly for such a genteel place as York there was a lot of siren noise from emergency vehicles as though something big had kicked off. We left the loosely termed restaurant and, hit with the cold air of the night, walked quickly towards the venue for the Union meeting. There were some dodgy characters about and they all seemed to be heading in the same direction as us. Bald headed and thick necked men who looked like nightclub bouncers, senior citizens with long straggly hair and the possibility of a small pony tail, spotty faced youths overheard recounting word for word the scripts of Monty Python whilst wielding their best Warhammer Claymore against fictional middle earth residents, a few accompanied women certainly reluctant wives and girlfriends of their T shirt clad menfolk and then our sub-group of very normal and quite boring Dads and their sons. I had to accept responsibility for my son, aged 16, in a verbal pledge to the doorstaff and was given a wristband which was cool for a 48 year old although it was well-hidden under my sensibly thick coat sleeves. The Union had booked a very dingy room down a series of stairwells very much like a bunker with low ceiling height, camouflage webbing concealing potential structural cracks and, as a hazard to anyone over 6 foot, a thickly set , sharp artex plastered coating to the reinforced concrete ceiling which made any enthusiastic leaping or pogo-ing fatal. Me and The Boy mingled with the murmuring crowd. There were two licensed bar areas and attendees were four to five deep at the bar which only seemed to serve draught beer. Under foot there was the constant crunch of discarded plastic glasses. The atmosphere was already a bit charged. On the stage area there was a warm up act, a group of southerners who complained that their van had broken down as an explanation for their late arrival. They were followed by a very noisy group of Irish and Scots, a bit militant and inconsiderate to the York crowd by insisting that the city was famous for Vikings (correct, thanks Wikipedia) and Pies? They did not really have much to say and I could not identify with their words and actions. I did have a good view of the stage but for some reason and whatever crowded situation I find myself in I am always in the position where people cross through the room
directly in front of me or push in. A chunky man, shaved head tried to edge me out by standing immediately to my right and then shuffling and manouevring his left shoulder in very delicate movements to get in front of me and block my direct view. I countered his every move and he eventually gave up the micro-chess game and I later saw him stage right but doing the same thing. The room lighting dimmed and the stage lights pulsed red and white. The audience cheered and clapped. The PA system started to play a song I hadn't heard for some considerable time but I automatically knew the words, as did the crowd. "You won't get me I'm part of the Union, ditto, ditto.....'til the day I die". To this raucous introduction the band came on stage and launched into the current single from their second album. The Union had started their UK tour and 90 minutes later me and The Boy, ears ringing, were singing and humming ,either openly or quietly in our head, on our way to find the car before returning home.
It will all make sense with the following....................
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03ELlaWWADk
Wednesday 19 October 2011
Coasting along
The coastal walk from Robin Hoods Bay to Whitby is spectacular. My wife, son and myself enthused with rare energy and motivation for a weekend activity drove the 50 or so miles from home to arrive at the Old Station Car Park at the unearthly hour of 7am. The drive from East to North Yorkshire sets the scene for a good day. Leaving behind the Metropolis that is Hull and it's satellite towns it is within minutes that you are into clear and unspoilt countryside. By-passing historic Beverley there is an undulating drive through the Wolds before the right turn into Bainton Village and across to Driffield, a real market town with local traders still holding on against the onslaught of the relentless express that is Tesco. There is a steady climb northwards from the town with the Humber Bridge and Saltend cooling towers in view some 30 to 40 miles south on a clear morning. The spiralling sweep into Langtoft is usually accompanied by silence in the car, not out of reverence or awe but because there is no signal whatsoever for radio or phone until emerging back into broadcastable range on the upward incline. The steepness of the Langtoft dip is in direct contrast to the very wide and shallow form of the next valley and the small hamlet of Foxholes. Then up and down past an old Inn, now a house, which cannot get any seasonal sunlight surely, before the top of Staxton Hill. An imperial 1 in 6 descent complete with a sand filled escape route for any runaway vehicles. I have never seen this in actual use although the contents of the wide trench do appear regularly cleft by wheel tracks. The approach to Scarborough from the south is unremarkable and I would not blame first time holidaymakers from thinking they had booked a week on an industrial estate from the extensive areas of factories, workshops and yards. The town itself is exceptionally grand architecturally and although adding up to half an hour to a through journey it is always uplifting to take the South Bay, Harbour and North Bay route taking a sideways view up the precipitous slopes to the Castle whilst taking care not to run into any pedestrians making the dash across to the harbourside funfair and amusements. The A171 is the main road towards Whitby, a wide and undulating carriageway with sea views to the east and moorland behind the drystone walling against the left verge giving alternate sights of ships and sheep. The tourist destinations are signposted with heavy horses, North York Moors railway and Boggle Hole on offer before the right turn for Robin Hoods Bay. We have been along the same road stretch many times in anticipation of a stay in a rented cottage but the sweeping view is always breathtaking. Ravenscar sits on a steep headland to the south. This was promoted as an affluent New Town based on railway investment but never materialised beyond a few Villas and now overgrown footings. Perhaps a very early warning of property speculation and credit crisis. The actual quaint RHB is not yet in view as it hangs low on to the cliff face and is shored up against the waves by a huge concrete defence wall. Fylingthorpe is functional but not attractive and then the 'T' junction with some red brick Victorian houses and car parks for visitors and residents alike.
The coastal walk sets off towards the cliff top and crosses the Rocket Field from the days of plucking stricken seafarers from the teacherous Bay below by rope, pulley and bosuns breech. The path is well worn and close, but not too close, to the sheer face of the cliff to cause me anxiety. There are some tricky parts where the clay on the clifftop has fallen away to leave a very narrow slippery track but with plenty of wire fence to hang on to for reassurance. The clay does hold up a lot of water and even on a summers day there can be thick quagmires on the lower crossing points for the Becks which cascade into the sea. By 8am the path is busy with walkers and it does get a bit tedious nodding or murmuring a greeting. The path is a short leg of the Cleveland Way, a long distance trek and well tended and patronised by the volunteers and supporters. There are some steep cut step climbs along the route but plenty of excuses to pause and catch breath in admiring the views. The jagged outline of the ruins of Whitby Abbey drift in and out of the eyeline and then just passing the Fog horn mounted on a coastguard building a decision has to be made to press on to Whitby itself or make a left wheel for the return trip. We unanimously voted for the latter. We were tired and baking a bit in our sensible early morning gear now looking positively unsuited to the approaching midday heat. Supplies were also running a bit low. After some roadwork, jarring on knees after the grass covered clay, the recommended route takes the course of the long dismantled railway. The surface is in a loose dressed slag based material and very sapping to tired legs. The course of the former line may have represented an engineering marvel for the early 19th Century but to the pedestrian it is very boring and feet and time drag incessantly. The elevated course gives a view over the earlier route now dotted with cagoule or t shirt clad ramblers. At last, back into the upper part of Robin Hoods Bay and the purchase of crisps and coke from the village shop to sustain the drive back. We ache and have very sunburnt features that will certainly give some discomfort later. We have completed our mission, not altogether in good style, but in good spirits and with an overwhelming feeling of acheivement. In all must be 10-12 miles but that can be accurately measured and verified at some later date.......
The coastal walk sets off towards the cliff top and crosses the Rocket Field from the days of plucking stricken seafarers from the teacherous Bay below by rope, pulley and bosuns breech. The path is well worn and close, but not too close, to the sheer face of the cliff to cause me anxiety. There are some tricky parts where the clay on the clifftop has fallen away to leave a very narrow slippery track but with plenty of wire fence to hang on to for reassurance. The clay does hold up a lot of water and even on a summers day there can be thick quagmires on the lower crossing points for the Becks which cascade into the sea. By 8am the path is busy with walkers and it does get a bit tedious nodding or murmuring a greeting. The path is a short leg of the Cleveland Way, a long distance trek and well tended and patronised by the volunteers and supporters. There are some steep cut step climbs along the route but plenty of excuses to pause and catch breath in admiring the views. The jagged outline of the ruins of Whitby Abbey drift in and out of the eyeline and then just passing the Fog horn mounted on a coastguard building a decision has to be made to press on to Whitby itself or make a left wheel for the return trip. We unanimously voted for the latter. We were tired and baking a bit in our sensible early morning gear now looking positively unsuited to the approaching midday heat. Supplies were also running a bit low. After some roadwork, jarring on knees after the grass covered clay, the recommended route takes the course of the long dismantled railway. The surface is in a loose dressed slag based material and very sapping to tired legs. The course of the former line may have represented an engineering marvel for the early 19th Century but to the pedestrian it is very boring and feet and time drag incessantly. The elevated course gives a view over the earlier route now dotted with cagoule or t shirt clad ramblers. At last, back into the upper part of Robin Hoods Bay and the purchase of crisps and coke from the village shop to sustain the drive back. We ache and have very sunburnt features that will certainly give some discomfort later. We have completed our mission, not altogether in good style, but in good spirits and with an overwhelming feeling of acheivement. In all must be 10-12 miles but that can be accurately measured and verified at some later date.......
Tuesday 18 October 2011
Lofty Expectations
Statistically speaking, I am a bit of a Health and Safety Risk. I work in a sector where there is regular exposure to hazard for example, being squashed by masonry falling from buildings, dropping through rotten floors, tripping over bodies, picking up fleas or an environmentally related illness or stumbling across a group of non-specific fanatics assembling some form of explosive device in a dimly lit and damp bedsit flat. I also drive a lot between jobs so again more exposure to the whims, fancies and mood swings of thousands of road-users.
I am in some control over the level of peril by being sensible and careful in the situations that I come across. If a particular property looks distinctly dodgy I will ring my office to announce my impending entry and that "I'm going in now" and with the request that if I do not, within strictly half an hour, let them know that I am safely out then they are to mobilise the emergency services, hostage negotiators, Max Clifford and my nearest and dearest and in that strict order. This rather extreme measure is quite rare but can be fully justified and prudent in cases where a building is fully boarded up and lacking floors and staircase, where there are signs of previous use as a major Cannabis production facility or where I am just a bit scared by the shadow cast by a large bird or the sound of crows seemingly laughing at me in their best Omen style. I was standing outside a house after being prevented entry by an obstruction behind the door when the bay window blew out in a flash of flame after arsonists had torched the place only minutes before I would have been inside. I do advocate safe surveying and there is plenty of guidance on this is my work manuals and professional publications. There are definitely some situations, and I speak from first hand experience, where full compliance and awareness cannot in any way protect you from the accident or misfortune that is just awaiting around the corner. Three such mishaps have afflicted me in recent years. All of these involved the use of ladders. It is a common fact that a body will swell up when entering a very warm and humid place. My 15 foot long ladder was already a tight fit into the high loft hatch access to the roof void above a large Victorian house. This gave me just enough clearance to squeeze through and in to the loft but not without some discomfort of a compressed chest and sternum between the aluminium rungs and the frame of the hatch. As they say, I did my business in inspecting the cavernous roof structure but was soon bathed in sweat mixed with dust and cobwebs in the extremely high temperatures below the black slate roof covering. The lady of the house could be heard at the foot of the ladder asking if I was nearly finished as she had to go out. I, red faced and perspiring, replied that I was and turned in the hatch to put my leading foot onto the ladder. I could see that the lady was waiting to escort me off the premises. Both feet on the ladder, ok, up to the knees and waist ,ok ,as I descended slowly. Then, remembering the pain on ascending through compaction of the chest I gingerly stepped lower. I was considerably heat swollen and as I scraped through the restricted opening my shirt lifted up and over my head. I stepped off the foot of the ladder looking like I was celebrating the winning goal in the cup final much to the horror of the homeowner. With that reaction I went on a diet.
In an empty house, used by a charity to store their clothing collection stock, the loft hatch was in the centre of the ceiling above the largest pile of unsorted items. I had to wade through the woollens, acrylics and nylons up to my own waist with ladder above my head to get into position. I pushed open the hatch cover with the top of the ladder and then fed it through into the darkness. The foot of the ladder could not be firmly rooted in the soft clothes and was out of alignment but stable enough to climb. At the top I realised I had left my torch in the hallway of the house and started down the ladder. The smell hit first and then I felt my hands in the soft cold mess of dog pooh. I gagged and retched realising that not only my hands but trousers and shoes were covered with the same. The source of the fouling was somewhere in the mass of second hand clothes. I went home to get changed, driving with all the car windows open.
The most awkward and painful experience was all my own doing. In a post war built bungalow, I was happy to see a built in loft ladder rather than having to lug around my own folding steps.Two paralell sections were tipped off balance and partly slid down to a reachable height. A catch released the lower of the two sections which I slowly eased down on to the floor. One foot on the lower rung I placed my left hand on the top rung of the lower section which suddenly clicked down and locked in place trapping my fingers. My weight on the ladder prevented me from loosening the tight grip of the two sections. I had only one option open to me. I had to get my body weight above my hand so that the lower section could be pulled up and clear of my trapped body part. Easier said than done as I had to work my way up using the remaining free hand in a crab like movement, ever more precarious in angle with each step. I was soon upside down with my feet higher than my head very much imitating a performance by a trapeize artist from Billy Smarts Circus I had once seen. It was not a time to get cramps or vertigo. Only in this contorted position could I then ease up the lower section hanging on by my feet from the aluminium ladder. My hand was at last free. This had taken about 10 minutes to do, in an empty house and with no phone within reach.I could imagine the post mortem report and subsequent press speculation about the strange games played by surveyors in empty houses had this not gone well for me. I was awarded at the Christmas party with the inter office commendation for incompetence and reluctantly accepted the dreaded prize of a golden boot. Not as harsh as you may think as my actions had helped me defend my winning streak in this category over a number of successive years.
I am in some control over the level of peril by being sensible and careful in the situations that I come across. If a particular property looks distinctly dodgy I will ring my office to announce my impending entry and that "I'm going in now" and with the request that if I do not, within strictly half an hour, let them know that I am safely out then they are to mobilise the emergency services, hostage negotiators, Max Clifford and my nearest and dearest and in that strict order. This rather extreme measure is quite rare but can be fully justified and prudent in cases where a building is fully boarded up and lacking floors and staircase, where there are signs of previous use as a major Cannabis production facility or where I am just a bit scared by the shadow cast by a large bird or the sound of crows seemingly laughing at me in their best Omen style. I was standing outside a house after being prevented entry by an obstruction behind the door when the bay window blew out in a flash of flame after arsonists had torched the place only minutes before I would have been inside. I do advocate safe surveying and there is plenty of guidance on this is my work manuals and professional publications. There are definitely some situations, and I speak from first hand experience, where full compliance and awareness cannot in any way protect you from the accident or misfortune that is just awaiting around the corner. Three such mishaps have afflicted me in recent years. All of these involved the use of ladders. It is a common fact that a body will swell up when entering a very warm and humid place. My 15 foot long ladder was already a tight fit into the high loft hatch access to the roof void above a large Victorian house. This gave me just enough clearance to squeeze through and in to the loft but not without some discomfort of a compressed chest and sternum between the aluminium rungs and the frame of the hatch. As they say, I did my business in inspecting the cavernous roof structure but was soon bathed in sweat mixed with dust and cobwebs in the extremely high temperatures below the black slate roof covering. The lady of the house could be heard at the foot of the ladder asking if I was nearly finished as she had to go out. I, red faced and perspiring, replied that I was and turned in the hatch to put my leading foot onto the ladder. I could see that the lady was waiting to escort me off the premises. Both feet on the ladder, ok, up to the knees and waist ,ok ,as I descended slowly. Then, remembering the pain on ascending through compaction of the chest I gingerly stepped lower. I was considerably heat swollen and as I scraped through the restricted opening my shirt lifted up and over my head. I stepped off the foot of the ladder looking like I was celebrating the winning goal in the cup final much to the horror of the homeowner. With that reaction I went on a diet.
In an empty house, used by a charity to store their clothing collection stock, the loft hatch was in the centre of the ceiling above the largest pile of unsorted items. I had to wade through the woollens, acrylics and nylons up to my own waist with ladder above my head to get into position. I pushed open the hatch cover with the top of the ladder and then fed it through into the darkness. The foot of the ladder could not be firmly rooted in the soft clothes and was out of alignment but stable enough to climb. At the top I realised I had left my torch in the hallway of the house and started down the ladder. The smell hit first and then I felt my hands in the soft cold mess of dog pooh. I gagged and retched realising that not only my hands but trousers and shoes were covered with the same. The source of the fouling was somewhere in the mass of second hand clothes. I went home to get changed, driving with all the car windows open.
The most awkward and painful experience was all my own doing. In a post war built bungalow, I was happy to see a built in loft ladder rather than having to lug around my own folding steps.Two paralell sections were tipped off balance and partly slid down to a reachable height. A catch released the lower of the two sections which I slowly eased down on to the floor. One foot on the lower rung I placed my left hand on the top rung of the lower section which suddenly clicked down and locked in place trapping my fingers. My weight on the ladder prevented me from loosening the tight grip of the two sections. I had only one option open to me. I had to get my body weight above my hand so that the lower section could be pulled up and clear of my trapped body part. Easier said than done as I had to work my way up using the remaining free hand in a crab like movement, ever more precarious in angle with each step. I was soon upside down with my feet higher than my head very much imitating a performance by a trapeize artist from Billy Smarts Circus I had once seen. It was not a time to get cramps or vertigo. Only in this contorted position could I then ease up the lower section hanging on by my feet from the aluminium ladder. My hand was at last free. This had taken about 10 minutes to do, in an empty house and with no phone within reach.I could imagine the post mortem report and subsequent press speculation about the strange games played by surveyors in empty houses had this not gone well for me. I was awarded at the Christmas party with the inter office commendation for incompetence and reluctantly accepted the dreaded prize of a golden boot. Not as harsh as you may think as my actions had helped me defend my winning streak in this category over a number of successive years.
Monday 17 October 2011
Big gigs and little jigs
Before my brain becomes addled and confused with age I felt it appropriate to list the live music gigs that I have been to. In true listomania fashion I have broken these down into decades and where remembered the venue and name of the promotional tour. Here goes;
1970's
The Jam. Setting Sons tour at Brid Spa. Got Paul Wellers autograph on my tee-shirt. I was under the misapprehension that I was a mod in one of my Dad's suits.
The Police. Regatta de Blanc tour at Brid Spa. My sister got backstage with the band but no-one had a pen. She also panicked when her bra strap was undone whilst she was in a prime spot near the front.
1980's
Wham! The tour with the large lettered T shirts. Leicester de Montfort. Mate got his car broken into and everything stolen. Not sure if it was George or that other one who did it.
Thompson Twins. Into the Gap tour. Nottingham. Big hair and big hats.
The Simple Minds. New Gold Dream tour. Sheffield.
U2. War Tour. Derby. Bono climbing all over the speaker stacks but before people were interested enough to go through his bins.
David Bowie. Serious Moonlight Tour. NEC Birmingham. A real arena gig. Bad traffic jams.
The Stranglers. Rock City, Nottingham. Mate slept through the gig after eating some fungus.
Wishbone Ash. Got on a bus from Lincoln but more like a mystery tour.
Barclay James Harvest. Look them up if you've never heard of them before.
Spear of Destiny. Hull City Hall. Turns out he was Boy George's beau for some time.
Elkie Brooks. Nottingham. Just good music
1990's
Paul Weller. Hull. He did not really need the other two from 1979.
Texas. Hull. The Hush- Lush.
Bernard Butler. Hull Blagged these last two through my brother who had done BB's album graphics.
Ocean Colour Scene. Hull. Best edge of britpop band.
Craig David. Sheffield. Went with daughter for first gig. Me and 15,000 females.
Beautiful South, Brid Spa. Fantastic live band
Lindisfarne. Beamish. Stumbled across them whilst looking for the musuem gift shop.
S Club 7. Just parked up in the car whilst wife and daughters attended.
2000's
REM. KC Arena. Poured with rain but great gig.
Tom Jones. Dalby Forest. One to see before he pops his welsh clogs.
Hem. Dalby Forest. Chilled out.
The Zutons. KC Arena. Before they were well known, Valerie.
Florence and the Machine. Will's first gig
James Taylor. Birmingham NEC. What a great musician, performer and showman.
Joe Bonamassa. Brid Spa. Best guitarist in the world and just getting started.
Kiss. Sheffield. Wow
Black Country Communion. Leeds. More Wow
Michael Schenker Group. Leeds. Rock and Roll
James Taylor Birmingham
Martin Turners Wishbone Ash. Local town hall. You never lose it.
The Scorpions at Munich Olympiahalle a week before Christmas.
Walter Trout in a basement in York
John Cooper Clarke at the Opera House, York. F****** Brilliant
Joe Bonamassa in Sheffield. Bigger and better
Joe Satriani
James Taylor
John Otway and Wild Willy Barratt
Thank you , goodnight.
1970's
The Jam. Setting Sons tour at Brid Spa. Got Paul Wellers autograph on my tee-shirt. I was under the misapprehension that I was a mod in one of my Dad's suits.
The Police. Regatta de Blanc tour at Brid Spa. My sister got backstage with the band but no-one had a pen. She also panicked when her bra strap was undone whilst she was in a prime spot near the front.
1980's
Wham! The tour with the large lettered T shirts. Leicester de Montfort. Mate got his car broken into and everything stolen. Not sure if it was George or that other one who did it.
Thompson Twins. Into the Gap tour. Nottingham. Big hair and big hats.
The Simple Minds. New Gold Dream tour. Sheffield.
U2. War Tour. Derby. Bono climbing all over the speaker stacks but before people were interested enough to go through his bins.
David Bowie. Serious Moonlight Tour. NEC Birmingham. A real arena gig. Bad traffic jams.
The Stranglers. Rock City, Nottingham. Mate slept through the gig after eating some fungus.
Wishbone Ash. Got on a bus from Lincoln but more like a mystery tour.
Barclay James Harvest. Look them up if you've never heard of them before.
Spear of Destiny. Hull City Hall. Turns out he was Boy George's beau for some time.
Elkie Brooks. Nottingham. Just good music
1990's
Paul Weller. Hull. He did not really need the other two from 1979.
Texas. Hull. The Hush- Lush.
Bernard Butler. Hull Blagged these last two through my brother who had done BB's album graphics.
Ocean Colour Scene. Hull. Best edge of britpop band.
Craig David. Sheffield. Went with daughter for first gig. Me and 15,000 females.
Beautiful South, Brid Spa. Fantastic live band
Lindisfarne. Beamish. Stumbled across them whilst looking for the musuem gift shop.
S Club 7. Just parked up in the car whilst wife and daughters attended.
2000's
REM. KC Arena. Poured with rain but great gig.
Tom Jones. Dalby Forest. One to see before he pops his welsh clogs.
Hem. Dalby Forest. Chilled out.
The Zutons. KC Arena. Before they were well known, Valerie.
Florence and the Machine. Will's first gig
James Taylor. Birmingham NEC. What a great musician, performer and showman.
Joe Bonamassa. Brid Spa. Best guitarist in the world and just getting started.
Kiss. Sheffield. Wow
Black Country Communion. Leeds. More Wow
Michael Schenker Group. Leeds. Rock and Roll
James Taylor Birmingham
Martin Turners Wishbone Ash. Local town hall. You never lose it.
The Scorpions at Munich Olympiahalle a week before Christmas.
Walter Trout in a basement in York
John Cooper Clarke at the Opera House, York. F****** Brilliant
Joe Bonamassa in Sheffield. Bigger and better
Joe Satriani
James Taylor
John Otway and Wild Willy Barratt
Thank you , goodnight.
Of Fish all announcement
The fish that I witnessed resting on its head,
Unfortunately, today is confirmed as dead
The life it had was fulfilled and momentus
I accept that this fate will ,in the end, findus
Unfortunately, today is confirmed as dead
The life it had was fulfilled and momentus
I accept that this fate will ,in the end, findus
Sunday 16 October 2011
Fish
The fish was resting on the flat part of the top of its head, upside down and at an awkward angle in the bottom left corner of the large tank. When I had first entered the room I saw it make a slight movement , trying to right itself but then it slipped back into the prone position. This may simply have been an instinctive panic movement as a reaction to my shadow as it cast across the face of the thick glass. I edged closer not wanting to startle the obviously distressed creature by presenting a grotesquely distorted image in front of its rather milky tinctured left eye. The gills were moving slightly and every 20 seconds or so its mouth gasped. The other occupants of the tank, some of the same species, were completely disinterested in the drama unfolding in the far reaches of their small, rectangular world. They were busy shuffling around in their role as bottom feeders or cruising around at a slightly higher level in a rather hauty manner pretending to own the territory between the petrified log and the water filter. I felt quite helpless in not knowing what action to take. The heavy wooden lid to the tank could be moved with some effort but what then? Could I prod the stricken fish with something or would that really finish it off? I crept up to the corner of the tank and tried to make visual contact with the madly staring right eye in order to give moral encouragement but to no avail. I feared the worst and sadly turned away not able to do anything to relieve or resolve the situation. I was only in the house helping out some friends who were away for the weekend. They would be back within a couple of hours and hopefully would be able to act quickly and decisively to save the fish from further suffering. My duty on this occasion was confined to feeding the cat, and as I opened the door to the kitchen I was grateful to see it fit, well, alive, purring in anticipation, strongly standing on all four paws and not resting upside down on the flat part of the top of its head. I would not have been able to cope with another such discovery of death and mayhem in the animal world.
Weather we do or weather we don't.
I am fascinated by weather systems.
My particular interest is not in the pictorial and rather patronising representations of big raindrops, oversized snowflakes or huge directional arrows for prevailing winds which the Met Office feel we are only able to cope with and comprehend in their brief broadcasts and finger in the wind forecasts after the news but the actual system as it passes overhead and in clear view.
I often point out to family members that it must be raining "over there" as I enthusiastically point at some distant black cloud or fuzzy horizon. If we subsequently travel to and through an unexpected downpour some minutes later I secretly mark the experience down to my practical and common sense approach to weather prediction.
In the same theme and sentiment as ' red sky at night, shepherd's delight' and the more ominous premonitions of bleary eyed farm workers if the day starts a bit ruddy looking I advocate that if it looks like it's going to rain, it jolly well might.
There is a majestic splendour in the contrast where a clear blue sky meets a sweeping mass of cloud in the approach of a new weather front. On a sunday in late June 2007 my son and I were basking in the hot sun under an unobstructed sky at a car boot sale. By about 11am we were commenting on the arrival of some of the largest cumulus nimbus I have ever seen. Towering fluffy white mountainous clouds. My son took some photo's which are still somewhere on my phone memory card. At 2pm this assault front opened up and in the next 36 hours caused large areas of Hull and the East Riding to disappear under water.
I enjoyed two full weeks of interesting weather systems on a family holiday on the Isle of Skye.
The micro-climate of the island guarantees rain. Our rented farmhouse was on a rocky bluff and a high point locally which was a definite positive on the basis that anuual rainfall can be as much as 7 feet a year. It rained, honestly, for the full 2 weeks our our stay with very few clear sky respites. The house had a conservatory on the west side and from here I could observe the waves of rainfall surge across the surface of the bay as they swept inland from the distant Rhum and Eigg island masses, bounce against the Cuillin mountains and then veer towards my vantage point.
I stopped announcing the progressive downpours when our 3 children threatened a mutiny to curtail their disastrous housebound vacation.
I did introduce my two daughters, at an early age, to the sheer terror of being caught in a nasty weather system. We had set off for a walk along the Humber shore, myself, two small girls and our two dogs, initially in reasonable and dry weather.
The plan was for a good circular walk from Hessle to North Ferriby on the river path and then the return leg along the main road. The dogs ran free on the safety of the track and I ambled along with the girls. My attention was drawn to a bank of very dark and ominous clouds coming towards us from the backdrop of the cement works across the river. In a minute the factory chimney was obscured by a squally cloud. The mile wide river was soon under the black shadow of the cloud and then a mini tornado hit us.
The stinging rain was horizontal and speckled with hailstones. Instinctively the dogs gathered around us looking worried. I gathered up the girls and we crouched down in a huddle with my back to the airborne tide. The dogs nosed in between us.
The noise and volume of downpour was terrific.
The raindrops and icy pellets thudded down on the ground and splashed up our legs so that we were soaked through from below as well as above. I think we may have offered up a small, quiet prayer for salvation at that stage.
The whole experience felt like an hour but was over in a few minutes as the wind carried over and northwards. Humans and dogs alike stood up and dripped.
The girls had light anoraks but these were saturated so that they were now purpley dark rather than the original red. The air temperature had dropped dramatically in the vanguard of weather. I was now fearful of the girls catching a chill as they were starting to shiver.
Wind cheaters were improvised from the orange Sainsbury bags I usually carried to pick up dog pooh but fortunately had not used so far. The bottom seam of each bag could be pulled apart without ripping the polythene. The girls, against all previous parental guidance, put the now open bags over their heads like a blouson and their little arms through the handle straps. Practical considerations and an instant improvement in warmth outweighed any considerations of a tailored fit.
Next thing was to get moving. My dilemna was whether to turn back and retrace our steps to Hessle or carry on to Ferriby and arrange for my wife to pick us up. I did not have my mobile phone with me so we could not get things organised ahead of our arrival at relative safety.
Drip-dry onward stiff leg walking to Ferriby got my vote and we struggled along . The dogs were more than happy to be back on the lead and close by.
The last part of the river path was built over a former landfill and the storm had washed out parts of the river bank to expose waste and debris which added to our feeling of desolation. We had seen no other persons since leaving Hessle.
At last we reached the village sewage works and a hard sufaced roadway up to the first houses of the village. We all squashed into the white telephone box outside the church and made the call to be collected. By the time my wife arrived to collect us in the car we had well steamed up the kiosk in the early stages of drying out and amongst an overpowering odour of damp dogs.
My particular interest is not in the pictorial and rather patronising representations of big raindrops, oversized snowflakes or huge directional arrows for prevailing winds which the Met Office feel we are only able to cope with and comprehend in their brief broadcasts and finger in the wind forecasts after the news but the actual system as it passes overhead and in clear view.
I often point out to family members that it must be raining "over there" as I enthusiastically point at some distant black cloud or fuzzy horizon. If we subsequently travel to and through an unexpected downpour some minutes later I secretly mark the experience down to my practical and common sense approach to weather prediction.
In the same theme and sentiment as ' red sky at night, shepherd's delight' and the more ominous premonitions of bleary eyed farm workers if the day starts a bit ruddy looking I advocate that if it looks like it's going to rain, it jolly well might.
There is a majestic splendour in the contrast where a clear blue sky meets a sweeping mass of cloud in the approach of a new weather front. On a sunday in late June 2007 my son and I were basking in the hot sun under an unobstructed sky at a car boot sale. By about 11am we were commenting on the arrival of some of the largest cumulus nimbus I have ever seen. Towering fluffy white mountainous clouds. My son took some photo's which are still somewhere on my phone memory card. At 2pm this assault front opened up and in the next 36 hours caused large areas of Hull and the East Riding to disappear under water.
I enjoyed two full weeks of interesting weather systems on a family holiday on the Isle of Skye.
The micro-climate of the island guarantees rain. Our rented farmhouse was on a rocky bluff and a high point locally which was a definite positive on the basis that anuual rainfall can be as much as 7 feet a year. It rained, honestly, for the full 2 weeks our our stay with very few clear sky respites. The house had a conservatory on the west side and from here I could observe the waves of rainfall surge across the surface of the bay as they swept inland from the distant Rhum and Eigg island masses, bounce against the Cuillin mountains and then veer towards my vantage point.
I stopped announcing the progressive downpours when our 3 children threatened a mutiny to curtail their disastrous housebound vacation.
I did introduce my two daughters, at an early age, to the sheer terror of being caught in a nasty weather system. We had set off for a walk along the Humber shore, myself, two small girls and our two dogs, initially in reasonable and dry weather.
The plan was for a good circular walk from Hessle to North Ferriby on the river path and then the return leg along the main road. The dogs ran free on the safety of the track and I ambled along with the girls. My attention was drawn to a bank of very dark and ominous clouds coming towards us from the backdrop of the cement works across the river. In a minute the factory chimney was obscured by a squally cloud. The mile wide river was soon under the black shadow of the cloud and then a mini tornado hit us.
The stinging rain was horizontal and speckled with hailstones. Instinctively the dogs gathered around us looking worried. I gathered up the girls and we crouched down in a huddle with my back to the airborne tide. The dogs nosed in between us.
The noise and volume of downpour was terrific.
The raindrops and icy pellets thudded down on the ground and splashed up our legs so that we were soaked through from below as well as above. I think we may have offered up a small, quiet prayer for salvation at that stage.
The whole experience felt like an hour but was over in a few minutes as the wind carried over and northwards. Humans and dogs alike stood up and dripped.
The girls had light anoraks but these were saturated so that they were now purpley dark rather than the original red. The air temperature had dropped dramatically in the vanguard of weather. I was now fearful of the girls catching a chill as they were starting to shiver.
Wind cheaters were improvised from the orange Sainsbury bags I usually carried to pick up dog pooh but fortunately had not used so far. The bottom seam of each bag could be pulled apart without ripping the polythene. The girls, against all previous parental guidance, put the now open bags over their heads like a blouson and their little arms through the handle straps. Practical considerations and an instant improvement in warmth outweighed any considerations of a tailored fit.
Next thing was to get moving. My dilemna was whether to turn back and retrace our steps to Hessle or carry on to Ferriby and arrange for my wife to pick us up. I did not have my mobile phone with me so we could not get things organised ahead of our arrival at relative safety.
Drip-dry onward stiff leg walking to Ferriby got my vote and we struggled along . The dogs were more than happy to be back on the lead and close by.
The last part of the river path was built over a former landfill and the storm had washed out parts of the river bank to expose waste and debris which added to our feeling of desolation. We had seen no other persons since leaving Hessle.
At last we reached the village sewage works and a hard sufaced roadway up to the first houses of the village. We all squashed into the white telephone box outside the church and made the call to be collected. By the time my wife arrived to collect us in the car we had well steamed up the kiosk in the early stages of drying out and amongst an overpowering odour of damp dogs.
Saturday 15 October 2011
Hull Fair, Fair Fare
I gave in to a stereotypical middle aged geek urge to try to calculate the hourly income generation of Hull Fair. This is my calculation based on guesstimate, prejudice, inappropriate stock judgements and not a very detailed knowledge of the economics of a very large, slick and efficient commercial enterprise.
I divided up the Fair into broad groups based on form and function, this covers the multi-million pound Mega Rides right down to the individual hawker with a fistful of helium balloons. I then estimated the average spend of a visitor to each category, how many visitors could be served at a time and how many times the transaction could be done per hour. For example, Bob Carvers Chip Emporium has about 15 servers who could turn around a punter every two minutes from order to payment therefore 30 per hour at an average spend of £7.40 assuming 2 portions of pattie, chips and peas. I applied this across the full range even down to Eva Petulengro Fortune Teller and stalker of Coronation Street Stars who can, I guess, throw considerable uncertainty into the ongoing lives of 6 people per hour for £5 a go.
The full calculation is as follows;
Fast Food Concessions. Average take £3, 5 servings at a time, 2 minutes duration, 30 per hour, 50 stalls
Fortune Tellers. Average take £5, 1 at a time but with 5 caravan based clairvoyants, 10 minutes consultation, so 6 per hour.
Major Rides. £2.50 average fare, 25 per ride, 12 revolutions, cycles or inversions per hour, 20 such high tech marvels of inertia and motion.
Traditional side stalls. £1.50 per chuck, launch, shot, hook a duck, 10 people at a time, 2 minutes of adrenaline soaked enjoyment, 30 per hour across 40 very similar stalls with this years top promotion of Meerkats.
Special category for dart throwing stalls.£1.50 , 10 men, 2 minutes including a cigarette, 30 per hour, 20 anachronistic and chauvinistic booth operators.
Bob Carvers, carried over from the illustrative section above.
Children's rides. £1 fare from grandma's purse. 20 per ride unless the toy cars have not yet been dettol'd so allow for 75% occupancy, 12 sessions per hour, I reckon about 10 old style rides just surviving the high tech expectations of the under-5's.
Amusements/slots/falls. £2 average spend, a lot of 2p's, 50 punters per arcade, disillusionment kicks in with fresh blood every 5 minutes, 5 arcades all possibly operated by the same company.
One-off specials. Difficult to see how these actually pay the operators. Cost of £10 per person, teamed up possibly with a perfect stranger to be elastic-launched no-where and be photographed of how you would look faced with the your worst nightmare or entering the Big Brother House. 10 minute set up and ride time so only 5 boings per hour. Possibly 2 of these ridiculous pieces of showboating equipment.
Traditional stalls selling candy floss, toffee apples, liquorice whips. Average spend £2, well staffed so 10 people served at a time, 2 minutes customer interface time, 30 similar stalls but strong representation from Wrights of Brighouse.
Hawkers with balloons, light-up hats, battery operated pets in baskets, whistles reminiscent of childhood Punch and Judy but cringingly annoying after 5 seconds. £3 per spend, 12 sales per hour with 30 high viz vested sellers.
I think that I have covered all income generating areas but if you can think of any more please fill in the dotted lines and carry over to my gross figure....................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
As the Americans always say incorrectly ' Now for the math'.
My hourly gross figure working through my calculations comes to £105,420 per hour for the peak evening sessions from 7pm to closing time.
This produces a global gross figure for the peak hours and over the 8 nights of the Fair of £3,373,440.
Making allowances for bad weather, exceptionally fine weather and those afraid of the dark who only attend in the daylight hours there is considerable scope for fluctuations in figures.
There are of course significant costs to be offset against this figure which I, no doubt, will ponder in the wee small waking hours of the next week or so.
I divided up the Fair into broad groups based on form and function, this covers the multi-million pound Mega Rides right down to the individual hawker with a fistful of helium balloons. I then estimated the average spend of a visitor to each category, how many visitors could be served at a time and how many times the transaction could be done per hour. For example, Bob Carvers Chip Emporium has about 15 servers who could turn around a punter every two minutes from order to payment therefore 30 per hour at an average spend of £7.40 assuming 2 portions of pattie, chips and peas. I applied this across the full range even down to Eva Petulengro Fortune Teller and stalker of Coronation Street Stars who can, I guess, throw considerable uncertainty into the ongoing lives of 6 people per hour for £5 a go.
The full calculation is as follows;
Fast Food Concessions. Average take £3, 5 servings at a time, 2 minutes duration, 30 per hour, 50 stalls
Fortune Tellers. Average take £5, 1 at a time but with 5 caravan based clairvoyants, 10 minutes consultation, so 6 per hour.
Major Rides. £2.50 average fare, 25 per ride, 12 revolutions, cycles or inversions per hour, 20 such high tech marvels of inertia and motion.
Traditional side stalls. £1.50 per chuck, launch, shot, hook a duck, 10 people at a time, 2 minutes of adrenaline soaked enjoyment, 30 per hour across 40 very similar stalls with this years top promotion of Meerkats.
Special category for dart throwing stalls.£1.50 , 10 men, 2 minutes including a cigarette, 30 per hour, 20 anachronistic and chauvinistic booth operators.
Bob Carvers, carried over from the illustrative section above.
Children's rides. £1 fare from grandma's purse. 20 per ride unless the toy cars have not yet been dettol'd so allow for 75% occupancy, 12 sessions per hour, I reckon about 10 old style rides just surviving the high tech expectations of the under-5's.
Amusements/slots/falls. £2 average spend, a lot of 2p's, 50 punters per arcade, disillusionment kicks in with fresh blood every 5 minutes, 5 arcades all possibly operated by the same company.
One-off specials. Difficult to see how these actually pay the operators. Cost of £10 per person, teamed up possibly with a perfect stranger to be elastic-launched no-where and be photographed of how you would look faced with the your worst nightmare or entering the Big Brother House. 10 minute set up and ride time so only 5 boings per hour. Possibly 2 of these ridiculous pieces of showboating equipment.
Traditional stalls selling candy floss, toffee apples, liquorice whips. Average spend £2, well staffed so 10 people served at a time, 2 minutes customer interface time, 30 similar stalls but strong representation from Wrights of Brighouse.
Hawkers with balloons, light-up hats, battery operated pets in baskets, whistles reminiscent of childhood Punch and Judy but cringingly annoying after 5 seconds. £3 per spend, 12 sales per hour with 30 high viz vested sellers.
I think that I have covered all income generating areas but if you can think of any more please fill in the dotted lines and carry over to my gross figure....................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
As the Americans always say incorrectly ' Now for the math'.
My hourly gross figure working through my calculations comes to £105,420 per hour for the peak evening sessions from 7pm to closing time.
This produces a global gross figure for the peak hours and over the 8 nights of the Fair of £3,373,440.
Making allowances for bad weather, exceptionally fine weather and those afraid of the dark who only attend in the daylight hours there is considerable scope for fluctuations in figures.
There are of course significant costs to be offset against this figure which I, no doubt, will ponder in the wee small waking hours of the next week or so.
How does Hull Fare?
Hull Fair is a festival for the City. It is magnificent that the Fair retains its status as the largest of its type in Europe and possibly the world. There are many challengers but I can confidently say that the people of Nottingham in particular have had a fair goose-ing again this year based on the 2011 Hull Fair. I was going to write about the Fair from an historic and reflective aspect. Something like, I drove my beast and fowl all the way along the Anlaby Road Turnpike for to sell and trade on the showground but got turned away by the Police Community Support Officers and then incurred a penalty fine for inappropriate use of the bus lane for herding or, I travelled to the fairground by hansom cab, cost me a silver shilling which is outrageous profiteering, and proceeded to have my frock coat, gaiters and spats ruined by the many puddles on the rough landed area. Subsequently and to my horror my top hat fell off on the Waltzers and I got stir fry noodle stains on my irish linen shirt front, or I was at the fair in my full Teddy Boy gear cruisin' and a-bruisin' for a bust-up when a large group of Emo's approached and made me feel quite melancholy and gawdily over dressed. They always look so clean and stylish or, my Bay City Roller scarf, tied tightly around my wrist got snagged on the top of the junior roller coaster and I had to be cut free and rescued by the emergency services or, finally, We went, yeah, on the rides, ok, yeah and it was minging, yeah because Chazzer right, tried to take a piccy, yeah, on his i-phone but wicked, right his mam tagged him, yeah and, right,he had to go back to the school, right, yeah to teach a year 12 class, yeah, LOL.
I opted, however, for a more socio-economic approach mainly because there have been many letters sent to the local press in criticism of how, in dire times of credit crisis and cut backs, people still have disposable income to lavish on the attractions of the Fair. Let me be clear on my position on this. The week of Hull Fair is as set in stone on family calendars, outlook express and text alerts as nothing else apart from Easter and Christmas and is therefore budgeted for. In the weeks prior to the arrival of the Fair there is a noticeable shortage of 2p's and 10p's in the local economy because they have been secreted away for the slots and falls. Small children are subversively indoctrinated with Peppa Pig and Toy Story so that they are more than thrilled to be bought a foil based inflatable of their favourite characters. Menfolk frequently disappear to their sheds to practice throwing darts at playing cards stuck onto odd pieces of melamine kitchen worktop. The Atkins or other high protein diets are accelerated in preparation for being surrendered to a polystyrene tray of Bob Carvers's gritty chips, mushy peas and a pattie. Teenagers are seen stretching themselves from door frames or on the climbing apparatus at the reccy lest they fail to reach the minimum height for going on the Hammer of Thor, Upside-Downie, round and roundie Mega ride. The Fair is for all ages and it is perfectly possible to pass a few hours there with little or no expenditure other than a paper wrapped packet of Wrights of Brighouse brandy snap and a pomegranate. The whole event is about atmosphere, collective enjoyment of a heritage and feeling shoulder to shoulder with fellow citizens who are also having a difficult time making ends meet or have an unopened letter on their kitchen table from their employer which is just too hard to get around to opening because, odds on, it is not a thank you and a hard earned and fully justified bonus.That is just not plain fair.
I opted, however, for a more socio-economic approach mainly because there have been many letters sent to the local press in criticism of how, in dire times of credit crisis and cut backs, people still have disposable income to lavish on the attractions of the Fair. Let me be clear on my position on this. The week of Hull Fair is as set in stone on family calendars, outlook express and text alerts as nothing else apart from Easter and Christmas and is therefore budgeted for. In the weeks prior to the arrival of the Fair there is a noticeable shortage of 2p's and 10p's in the local economy because they have been secreted away for the slots and falls. Small children are subversively indoctrinated with Peppa Pig and Toy Story so that they are more than thrilled to be bought a foil based inflatable of their favourite characters. Menfolk frequently disappear to their sheds to practice throwing darts at playing cards stuck onto odd pieces of melamine kitchen worktop. The Atkins or other high protein diets are accelerated in preparation for being surrendered to a polystyrene tray of Bob Carvers's gritty chips, mushy peas and a pattie. Teenagers are seen stretching themselves from door frames or on the climbing apparatus at the reccy lest they fail to reach the minimum height for going on the Hammer of Thor, Upside-Downie, round and roundie Mega ride. The Fair is for all ages and it is perfectly possible to pass a few hours there with little or no expenditure other than a paper wrapped packet of Wrights of Brighouse brandy snap and a pomegranate. The whole event is about atmosphere, collective enjoyment of a heritage and feeling shoulder to shoulder with fellow citizens who are also having a difficult time making ends meet or have an unopened letter on their kitchen table from their employer which is just too hard to get around to opening because, odds on, it is not a thank you and a hard earned and fully justified bonus.That is just not plain fair.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)